


Immortals

by salacious_crumpet



Series: Fire Meet Detonite [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutually Supportive Partnerships, Past Torture, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shameless Smut, Strong Language, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:24:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 57
Words: 325,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salacious_crumpet/pseuds/salacious_crumpet
Summary: The ongoing relationship between Republic SIS agent Theron Shan, Imperial Intelligence agent Miranza Gerrick and Joiner Vector Hyllus, set against the backdrop of Knights of the Fallen Empire/Knights of the Eternal Throne.





	1. Introduction

Bad news: _Past Imperfect_ is on indefinite hiatus. I know where I want the story to go (or rather, where I need it to end up), I’m just struggling to get there and feeling unmotivated to resolve that struggle when I’ve got so many other ideas boiling over.

Good news (I hope): _Immortals_ is a continuation of the _Fire Meet Detonite_ series, focusing on the relationship between Theron Shan, Miranza Gerrick (my Imperial agent) and Vector Hyllus.

For obvious reasons this story will contain spoilers for _The Voices of Thieves and Robbers_ and the currently-published chapters of _Past Imperfect,_ the first two stories in the _Fire Meet Detonite_ series. I intend to deliberately leave things vague as to how my characters got from _PI_ to _Immortals,_ so as to avoid spoilers for the parts of _Past Imperfect_ I haven’t published yet, but one obvious spoiler is that yes, all three of the main characters make it out of that story alive and relatively unscathed. This story will also contain spoilers for the Imperial Agent and Shadow of Revan storylines, the interlude on Ziost, and Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne.

I was always interested in writing a story set in the KotFE/KotET timelines, but hated the idea of losing Vector Hyllus as a character. Cinlat (whose own works here on AO3 are high on my list of recommended reading) and I discussed the idea of a story wherein the main character was not the Outlander, but rather one that focused on the people doing the background work. After all, she pointed out, Theron Shan talks about having contacts and allies – what if Miranza and Vector were among those allies? This conversation led to _Immortals,_ which is intended to be more vignette-style than my previous works (each chapter should be largely self-contained).

The main title is taken from the song of the same name by Fall Out Boy, which I first heard and fell in love with when it was used in a fan-vid for the MCU Black Widow/Hawkeye relationship (I ship it). Chapter titles will also be taken from songs, because I love it when other fanfic writers use song titles and lyrics as inspiration for their stories and wanted to return the favour. A significant chunk of my iTunes library and Spotify playlist owes itself to fanfic author recommendations.

Enjoy!


	2. Crash! Boom! Bang!

**_Zakuul, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

She might not be a fan of their fashion, their sports, their food or – oh, yes, their habit of completely and utterly obliterating both the Republic and the Empire, but Miranza Gerrick could give the Zakuulans this much: their architecture was _stunning._

Having retreated to a small alcove to catch her breath (who knew intergalactic drug smugglers could be so fond of dancing?) and discreetly check in with her husband, Miranza was given ample opportunity to appreciate the massive atrium that hosted the bulk of the party she and Vector had crashed. (Was it technically crashing if they’d had invitations? Presumably yes, since their invitations were forged.) The atrium was huge, with high, vaulted ceilings and a stunning marble floor – presently hidden under the dancing, mingling crowd – that depicted an elaborate mosaic from one of the Zakuulan myths. The trim over the wide doorways and the tall, transparisteel windows was done in that fancy, blocky pattern she had come to recognize as distinctly Zakuulan, and there was an overall theme of black and gold elegance that was truly breathtaking, unlike anything she had seen in Imperial space. Not that the Empire was lacking in majesty and grandeur, but this … Zakuul was something else.

Miranza’s eyes lit on her husband, chatting amicably with a cluster of socialites, his entire ensemble serving to highlight another of her opinions on Zakuul and its people: their fashion sense was absolutely _absurd._ Standing tall and proud, hands gesturing animatedly as he spoke, Vector managed to blend in perfectly with the crowd in his Zakuulan attire. The sleeveless tunic, done up in a rich, heavily-saturated shade of crimson with gold accents, was certainly nothing he would have chosen for himself, but Miranza couldn’t help but appreciate how well it showcased his lean frame and his tanned, muscled arms. The deep red complemented his dark beauty, contrasting sharply with his bared arms, and the low V of the neckline exposed the smooth lines of his neck and collarbones. The black pants were tight, tucked into black leatheris boots that came up past his knees; she’d caught more than one person turning to admire the view as her husband walked past. The Zakuulan penchant for bizarre accessories meant no one did a double-take at the stylized visor he wore to hide his strange all-black eyes. And his _hair_ … It had taken them a ridiculous amount of time and far too much styling product to mould his straight black hair into the preposterous pompadour that was the current fashion, but with his high cheekbones and the elegant, hawk-like contours of his face Vector pulled the look off wonderfully.

Of course, she _might_ be biased. In Miranza’s opinion Vector Hyllus would look magnificent in a burlap sack wearing a baby gizka on his head. No amount of ludicrous stylings could make _him_ unattractive.

She was less sanguine about her own appearance. The fuchsia wig – straight hair cut and styled in some strange, choppy fashion ill-suited to her round face – was too hot and was beginning to give her a headache where the band keeping it in place pressed against her forehead. The fuchsia contact lenses were itchy and the left one kept migrating skywards, threatening to disappear forever under her eyelid. The black dress (oh, how she _hated_ wearing black) felt too tight and too low-cut and if she needed to make a run for it she would have to slit the skirt up the side in order to move properly (and never mind the four-inch stiletto heels she’d have to ditch before attempting anything more hurried than a stately saunter). She knew she looked good in spite of the somewhat unflattering hairstyle – her appearance was as much a part of Intelligence work as lockpicking or rumour-mongering and she knew how to style herself – but she certainly didn’t look like herself. The outfits did their job, however: no one would remember Miranza Gerrick or Vector Hyllus. Everyone would remember the pink-haired woman with the fabulous cleavage and the handsome, elegant man with the eccentric habit of referring to himself in the third person.

A good rule of spycraft: in order to blend in, sometimes one needs to stand out.

The tiny alcove provided Miranza with an excellent view of the party, raising her a couple meters above the crowd yet recessed enough that she didn’t feel as though she was on display. She was tempted to duck back behind the black and gold curtain and slip out of her heels, if only for a few minutes so that she could massage her aching feet. She was tired and hot and very much looking forward to crashing back at the safehouse with her boys.

Thinking of ‘her boys’ set a small smile on Miranza’s lips, her eyes still fixed on her husband and his cluster of admirers. It was rare for her and Vector to be working an operation with Theron, and while it was easy for her to say it was all for the greater good and that soon the three of them could be together in a more permanent setting, the truth was that it felt like all she and her husband did was race from one assignment to the next. That it was Theron providing them with the intel and sending them their marching orders was lovely – it was in fact a delightful change from the days when they were working on opposite sides of the fence – but it wasn’t the same as actually spending time with him. Miranza didn’t consider herself to be a greedy person, but when it came to the two men in her life she felt she deserved a little indulgence.

Watching her husband work was another rare pleasure, appreciated all the more so because she could read the expressions on the faces of the men and women gathered around him, and could see that they were openly admiring him. Back in Imperial space Vector’s Joiner status made him an outsider and an alien, and while there was a Killik-Imperial alliance in place – thanks in no small part to Vector’s own tireless efforts – most Imperial citizens would have nothing to do with him. His strange eyes, liquid cadences and unusual speech patterns marked him as something _other,_ something to be feared or disdained. Here on Zakuul, however, no one had ever heard of Killiks or Joiners, and while he kept his eyes hidden it wasn’t because the sight of him would fill others with disgust. No, instead it was simply that a man with all-black eyes would be too recognizable, too memorable. His companions saw only an attractive, well-dressed and incredibly eloquent man: the things Miranza herself saw, the things she had always seen. It was delightful to be able to stand back and watch others treating Vector the way he deserved to be treated.

She couldn’t wait to get him home and rip off that crimson shirt and muss up his ridiculously-coiffed hair.

If she hadn’t been studying him closely – and hadn’t known to look for it – she would have missed him making the pinch. Vector’s pickpocketing skills had come a long way since he had first joined her crew as a ‘covert assault specialist.’ The woman next to him, a loud, brassy blonde with a carefree smile, leaned in close, flirting outrageously, and Vector gave every indication of being appreciative of her interest. A tilt of the head, a wry quirk of the lips, and then he moved to whisper something in her ear, his arm sliding easily around her back as his opposite hand slipped to her hip. Even with the distance between them Miranza could see the woman’s eyelashes flutter, and her delighted laughter, tinged with just the faintest note of delicious scandal, echoed across the atrium. Whatever bold thing Vector had whispered, it must have been something that hovered on the border between flirtatious and scandalous, and his target was thrilled. Miranza saw his hand dip, ever so slightly, into the woman’s handbag; when he drew away again she knew he had the codes tucked in his palm, and his target was none the wiser. There was no sign of the theft on his face; he was as relaxed and confident as ever. None of the people clustered around him had noticed – they were too busy being enthralled by him.

_Stars,_ but she loved that man.

Miranza’s own target – a bluff, blustery grandfatherly sort of gentleman who couldn’t stop staring in fascination at her wig – was just as simple, and his access codes were already tucked inside the hidden pocket in her bra. Theron was the one sent to tackle the hard assignment: slicing the syndicate’s databanks in order to retrieve detailed information on the shipping routes used by Emperor Arcann’s supply chain. That intel, combined with the codes she and Vector acquired, would hopefully enable Lana to track down the best point of entry into the Zakuulan Emperor’s archives. How Lana had managed to ascertain that the Zakuulan criminal syndicate had access to this information remained a mystery for Miranza, but the former head of Sith Intelligence had an extensive array of contacts and in the more than two years of working with her and Theron Miranza had learned to trust Lana’s sources.

Ducking back behind the curtains, Miranza tapped one finger over the comm in her ear. “Nexu One, Nexu Three has made the grab. We’re good to go. What’s your status?”

She waited, effortlessly tuning out the noise from the party as she listened for Theron’s response. For a moment she thought she heard static from her comm, but she couldn’t be certain; lacking the vast Imperial funding she had grown accustomed to over her years in Intelligence, Miranza and her team had been forced to make do with less expensive – and less dependable – tech. Theron had a comm built into his implants, of course, but she and Vector had tiny, discreet earbuds. They lacked sound quality and reliability, but the comms were more subtle than walking around a party full of criminals while wearing an obvious wire.

Miranza tapped her comm again. “Nexu One, do you copy?”

Nothing, not even a burst of static. She told herself there were a number of perfectly reasonable explanations for Theron’s radio silence – perhaps there were signal jammers in the data core, or the room itself was some kind of dead-zone, or it could even be something as simple as him being interrupted by an unexpected visitor. They’d planned everything carefully, but even the most detailed plan couldn’t account for everything. Perhaps he’d simply come upon a tricky bit of coding that required his full and complete attention, and he was just ignoring her for the moment. There were plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations, but in Miranza’s experience only one explanation was necessary: because it was Theron Shan, and things never went according to plan where he was involved. The man was a magnet for disaster.

Miranza tapped her comm a third time, this time triggering the pulse that would ping off Theron’s and Vector’s comms to indicate that their equipment was still online. She received the expected response from Vector’s comm – a soft yet reassuring little _ding!_ that sounded in her ear – but from Theron’s comm there was nothing. His comm was offline.

He could be in a dead-zone, she reminded herself, even as she pushed back the curtain and left the relative obscurity of her alcove, a sense of urgency rising in her. Because that was one of two possibilities, the other being that for whatever reason, Theron’s comm had been turned off. And the only way his comm could be turned off would be to turn off his implants – and there was no reason for Theron to do that. Even with the signal being jammed she should have received a ping rather than complete silence.

Just as Miranza left the alcove – and ahead of her she could see Vector beginning to disentangle himself from his admirers – she caught a glimpse of uniformed guards making their way through the crowd, casting around as though searching for someone or something. They moved in pairs, one set coming from the eastern entrance, another from the west, and in both pairs Miranza could see that one guard carried a scanning device of some sort. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what they were looking for.

“Going dark,” she said, then pretended to fiddle with the setting of one of the heavy chandelier-style earrings she wore. As she adjusted the earring she discreetly plucked the comm from her ear, palming it and then making as if to fix her hair. Miranza closed her hand into a fist, crushing the delicate comm, and glided carefully into the crowd. She eased in behind a large, laughing socialite and deftly slipped the ruined comm into the pocket of the man’s jacket, moving away before he had a chance to register her presence. She didn’t know who the guards were looking for, but she didn’t want to be caught wearing a comm, and didn’t feel the least bit of guilt at planting hers on a man who had been trying (with varying degrees of success) to grope her all night.

Slipping across the crowded atrium Miranza cast a surreptitious glance in her husband’s direction, seeing him appear to regretfully part ways with his companions and discard his own comm in a nearby water fountain. She was careful not to spend too much time admiring him – they hadn’t arrived together and had made every effort to seem unconnected – but as she saw two of the guards approach him, she immediately tensed up, assessing the crowd between them and calculating how difficult it would be to get to him in the event of a fight. (The answer: difficult. She was wearing a too-tight dress and too-high heels and she was largely unarmed. Not that any of that would stop her should Vector be in danger.)

Vector seemed unconcerned, however, giving the guards a genial smile as they drew close. Miranza couldn’t hear him over the general hubbub, but she was familiar enough with his habits and mannerisms to get the gist of the conversation: a polite greeting, a brief uplifting of his elegant eyebrows as though he was genuinely surprised at being stopped by security, and then a swift return of his affable smile. He raised one long-fingered hand and lifted his visor away from his eyes; Miranza held her breath, only to let the exhalation out slowly as she realized he had managed to suppress the pheromonic bond that connected him to the Killik hive, and that his eyes were not their usual uniform black but rather the light hazel he’d been born with. He couldn’t hold it for long – certainly not for the length of the party – but he could maintain it for long enough. Hopefully.

Sure enough, Vector’s charm and apparent openness won the guards over. He handed his visor over to one of the guards – the one with the scanner – and waited patiently for the man to return it to him. Before long he was let go, slipping the visor back into place as he eased through the crowd. Miranza let him out of her sight as she made her own way towards the exit, and while more than a few heads turned to follow her security didn’t take note of her. She suspected that Vector had only drawn attention because of his visor; chances were, the guards likely thought it held some kind of communications device. She felt a moment of relief at his decision not to wear something more elaborate than a simple ornamental visor – Theron had suggested using a more high-tech device with a comm-link and assorted scanning features, but Vector preferred to rely on his own Killik-enhanced senses. He had felt that he would find the various viewscreens and inputs to be too distracting, especially as they wouldn’t have much time for him to practice with the device beforehand. Had his visor actually been outfitted with comm tech his exchange with the guards would have likely gone very differently.

The two spies were well away from the gathering and disappearing into the warm Zakuulan night before they met up. They ducked into an alley behind a restaurant several blocks away from the party, Miranza already slipping out of her heeled shoes as Vector bent to retrieve their rucksack from its hiding spot. Wordlessly he handed his wife a replacement comm unit, tucking his own receiver into his ear and waiting for the signal to pick up.

As soon as Miranza’s comm was in place she heard a familiar feminine Mandalorian voice drawling in her ear. “ _We takin’ bets this time,_ riduur?”

_“No bets, Nexu Four,”_ came the reply, in a deep, Imperial-accented man’s voice. _“Nexu One’s in trouble.”_

_“Must be Taungsday,”_ Nexu Four – the Mandalorian woman otherwise known as Rekka Vyziari – sighed. Miranza caught some distortion in the signal, something that sounded like a rush of wind, and realized Rekka and her husband Barrazhat must be traveling by speeder. She couldn’t hear Barrazhat swearing in the background, which meant he was likely the one driving; Rekka had a tendency to drive as though operating a beskar-reinforced tank, rather than some lightweight little pleasure bike. _“Do we have an exfil plan?”_

“Nexu Two and I are heading to his location now,” Miranza answered, quickly slipping out of her dress and donning the dark grey tac suit she had packed in case of emergencies. The full-body suit wasn’t as good as the beskar’gam the two bounty hunters wore, but it was a vast improvement over a slinky black dress and provided her a better range of movement. Beside her Vector was likewise suiting up, rolling his party clothes up in a ball around his wife’s dress and shoving the bundle of fabric into the rucksack for safe keeping. Miranza had ditched her wig and contacts on the way, her own naturally blonde hair and blue eyes standing out far less than fuchsia. She exchanged glances with Vector, and saw her own nervousness and worry written plainly across his handsome face.

“Best prepare yourselves for an emergency extraction,” Vector added, nodding at his wife. “We will comm you with our coordinates when ready.”

_“Copy that.”_ Rekka’s joking tone became all-professional. _“Waiting on your signal, Nexu Two.”_

The comm went silent, and Miranza and Vector exchanged glances again. All jesting aside, the two bounty hunters were probably correct: safe money was on Theron – the _Nexu One_ of their current five-man team – having found himself in trouble, again. Just once it would have been nice for an operation to go precisely as planned, but there was a reason their team had a number of back-ups in place, as well as a propensity for improvising when the shit hit the fan.

_Ah, well,_ Miranza thought as she and Vector began racing silently through the quiet city streets. _We’ve already crashed one party. Time to crash another._

O o O o O

When the first explosion rang out it was distant and muffled by the sound-proofed interrogation room, and at first Theron assumed he had imagined it. In his defense he was pretty out of it – between the jolt that had taken out his implants and whatever drugs his captors had pumped into his system (not to mention a few rounds of him being used as a human punching-bag), he was having a hard time staying conscious, and frankly, he hurt enough that unconsciousness seemed like an absolutely _fantastic_ idea.

Theron had to hand it to them, Zakuul clearly had a better class of criminal than he was used to in Republic or Imperial space. Or at least they were better prepared for slicers with implants: he still didn’t know what alarm he’d triggered or what trap he’d managed to set off. He knew he’d successfully sliced the database and was just beginning to search for the intel Lana had sent them for when it suddenly felt like several hundred-thousand volts of electricity were coursing through his body. He didn’t have much chance to appreciate what was happening, though – the trap slammed into him through his implants, shutting down his cybernetics in a matter of seconds and with enough force to knock him out entirely. He woke up sometime later – with no idea of how much time, exactly, had passed – strapped to a chair and feeling like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to his face and abdomen.

His implants remained offline no matter how many times he tried to reboot them, and the toxin scrubbers and pain-tolerance enhancements were offline with them, leaving him completely susceptible to whatever strange Zakuulan narcotic he’d been injected with and feeling every cut, bruise and bump his interrogators had inflicted on him. With his implants offline Theron was also without a chronometer to tell him how much time had passed and no comms to get in contact with the rest of his team. He didn’t know how long he’d been tied up, but he felt certain he had to have missed a check-in or two by now and while Miranza and the two bounty hunters weren’t known for worrying Vector had been bordering on overprotective ever since Ziost. They would be looking for him.

The second explosion was much clearer, not to mention both louder and closer, and Theron found himself struggling against the binders holding him in place, trying to will his sluggish body to move and his blurry vision to clear. Everything remained fuzzy – his left eye was worse and he was worried the trap had done more than just fry his implants – and his ears were ringing, but he thought he could hear shouting from outside his cell.

The door to his cell burst inwards and one of his interrogators came sailing into the room only to crash into the opposite wall. Theron had a moment to goggle in confusion at the crumpled, battered body – it was difficult to discern whether the man was alive or dead, but judging from his degree of stillness Theron was going to have to guess dead – before a short, slim woman in a full-body tactical suit popped her head into the room.

A gloved hand reached up to tug down the mask obscuring her face, and Theron caught a glimpse of worried blue eyes and a mouth twisted into a frown. Miranza caught herself and forced a wry smile. When she spoke her voice held a faint note of humour: “Rough day at the office, darling?”

She stepped into the room, Vector close on her heels. The Joiner spared a brief glance towards the dead or unconscious man before crossing the small room and moving behind Theron to begin working on the binders. Theron felt his wrists come free and he slowly, carefully brought his arms forward, grimacing at the pull on muscles that had been locked into place for Force only knew how long. He stretched, flexing aching joints and muscles, but as far as he could tell the damage was largely superficial: painful, but not life-threatening. His interrogators had known what they were doing. Miranza leaned down, making _tsk_ -ing sounds as she inspected Theron’s face, her gaze lingering on his implants.

“I could kiss you,” Theron said emphatically as she helped him up, her arm looping around behind his back to support him. He stood, legs shaking, knees weak: a combination of him sitting in one position for too long and whatever drugs he’d been dosed with.

Miranza made a face. “Ugh, don’t. You’re filthy.”

Theron glanced down at himself, noticing for the first time the blood smeared over his opened shirt and the holes in his jacket and pants. A wave of dizziness hit him and he staggered and would have fallen were it not for Miranza’s arm around his waist holding him upright.

“I wrecked my suit,” he said, feeling an absurd amount of guilt even though he certainly hadn’t been the one to punch himself in the face. Miranza had picked his suit out for him, and he’d gone and ruined it.

“You certainly did, love,” she replied, sounding unconcerned - or rather, her concern had nothing to do with his suit and everything to do with the condition he was in - and he felt her shrug against him. “Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

Vector led the way out of the cell, his electrostaff held at the ready in a two-handed grip. Miranza followed close behind, and if she minded how heavily Theron was forced to lean on her she didn’t say anything. The former Imperial spy was strong, far stronger than her petite frame might have suggested. She kept one arm wrapped around Theron’s waist, a blaster pistol in her free hand, using her own body as a shield to protect his.

Blaster shots pelted the area around the doorframe, and Vector ducked back hastily into the room, forcing Miranza and Theron to stay behind him. He peered out again, his head turning to look down the hall in both directions, and as another array of shots were fired towards them he calmly tapped his comm.

“Nexu Four, we are ready for extraction now,” he said, sounding as composed and unruffled as if he was inquiring about the wine selection at a fancy restaurant. Miranza’s grip on Theron loosened and she leaned in around her husband, firing off a few shots down the hallway. Theron’s ears were still ringing but he distinctly heard a cry of pain, followed by some swearing, down at the far end of the hall. Miranza drew back inside the room, smiling grimly.

Theron wished his own comm was still in operation so that he could hear what the two bounty hunters were saying in response to Vector’s report. Between the dizziness, the ringing in his ears and his inability to listen in on his team’s communications, he felt decidedly detached from the situation, as if he was observing everything from the sidelines. He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, ignoring the stinging of his split lip and the blood that smeared across his skin, and focused on remaining upright.

“Thirtieth floor, yes,” Vector was saying, still speaking into his comm. “Thirty seconds.”

Theron didn’t know what the response was, but Miranza snarled into her own comm, “Just _do_ it, Nexu Four!” and then Vector was darting out into the hallway and Miranza was grabbing Theron by the front of his ruined jacket and hauling him out after her husband. Theron caught a fleeting glimpse of an overturned table down at the far end of the hall, and behind it a cluster of armed guards, all of them pointing weapons in his direction. Beyond the guards and further down the hallway he could see nothing but smoke, and he wondered how much that was contributing to his blurry eyes. Shots were fired but none of them landed; out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of brilliant blue light as Vector’s shield flared to life.

“Can you run?” Miranza’s voice, close to his ear. She was pushing him away from the guards, towards the opposite end of the hall. Ahead of them he saw nothing but transparisteel, his own haunted reflection staring back at him from the window down the hall.

“What?” He looked at her in confusion, then back at the window.

“Run, One!” Miranza gave him a little push, sending him stumbling in the direction of the window before she turned and fired over her shoulder towards their enemies.

Just as Theron started moving – it would have been a stretch to say he was running, although he certainly _tried_ to run – towards the transparisteel window, there was another loud explosion and the glass shattered into thousands of tiny blue-green pebbles. Theron ducked, throwing one hand up to cover his face, but he was in no danger of being hit by broken transparisteel. Then he was back in motion, propelling himself down the hallway as fast as his benumbed and shaking legs could carry him.

He made it to the end of the hall and staggered to a stop, staring out the shattered window into the cityscape below. The lights of Zakuul twinkled like stars all around him, while up above the real stars were blacked out by the light pollution from the city. Wind whipped at his face, colder than he would have expected, helping the fog in his brain to recede a little.

_“Jump!”_ Miranza screamed from behind him.

Theron shot her an incredulous glance over his shoulder. _Jump?_ Was she _insane?_ There was nothing –

Before Theron had time to finish the thought Miranza was colliding into him, and the next thing he knew he was tumbling through the open window, frantically pinwheeling his arms around in a desperate effort to catch onto something before he fell thirty stories to his death.

He’d barely fallen more than a meter or so before he hit the flatbed of the skiff hovering outside the window. One of his ankles twinged at the impact and he let out a hoarse curse as he rolled with the fall, tumbling forward onto his hands and knees. A heavy gauntleted fist clapped down on his back, fingers grasping onto the back of his jacket to prevent him from falling any further, and then he was yanked to safety, pulled into the cab of the skiff by an incredibly large man in full Mandalorian armour.

“You look like _osik,_ One,” the bounty hunter declared, hauling Theron to his feet and helping him sit down on one of the low benches that lined the flatbed. The Mandalorian word for ‘dung’ sounded out of place when combined with Barrazhat’s upper-class Imperial accent – just as out of place as the accent was coming out of a traditional T-shaped Mando visor. Theron knew the only thing that would have seemed even more unlikely would have been Barrazhat taking off his helmet and revealing the fact that the Imperial-accented Mandalorian was in fact a Pureblood Sith, vibrant red skin, facial tendrils and all.

“Thanks,” Theron replied dryly, deciding to leave it up to the imagination whether he was thanking Barrazhat for his comment or for the rescue.

Theron sank back against the side of the skiff, letting his head thunk against the durasteel wall. Up ahead he could hear Rekka swearing in a mixture of Basic, Mando’a and Huttese as she flew them away from the tower. He closed his eyes, adrenaline and exhaustion fighting for dominance over the lingering traces of narcotics. He made another attempt to reboot his implants, desperately missing the ability to reduce the drugs in his system (not to mention the pain), and when that failed he sighed and reached up to touch the outline of the cybernetics set in his forehead.

Something batted his hands away and he looked up, startled, to see Miranza giving him a disapproving glare as she prevented him from touching his implants. He opened his mouth to protest, a wash of indignation and bewilderment sweeping over him, only for Vector to lean down and shake his head in warning. He had no idea when the two Imperials had joined him on the skiff.

“Do not touch, love,” the Joiner said, with a meaningful glance in the direction of Theron’s bare hands. “You’re filthy.”

Theron looked down at his hands, realizing that in addition to the blood smeared across his skin there was now also dirt and grime from his tumble in the back of the skiff. He had no clue what he'd fallen in, but it smelled awful and looked worse. He curled his hands into fists and tucked them in his lap, sensing the wisdom in not letting his grubby fingers come into contact with the damaged implants that were jacked into his brain. After frying his cybernetics and getting the shit kicked out of him by goons, the last thing Theron needed was to give himself a brain infection on top of everything else.

Something heavy landed on the bench beside him, and he turned to watch Miranza begin rifling through their emergency medkit, no doubt searching for whatever supplies she thought she might need to patch him back up. More often than not these days she was their team medic; more often than not, Theron was the only one who needed it. The two Mandalorians had their armour, Vector had his enhanced Killik physiology, and Miranza … well, Theron wasn’t entirely sure _what_ Miranza had that ensured she wasn’t the one in need of doctoring, but if he was to ask her she would probably have said it was common sense, something she felt _he_ was distinctly lacking.

Miranza snapped on a pair of sterile gloves and pulled out the little flashlight she kept in the kit, switching it on and shining it in Theron’s eyes. He grimaced, fighting the urge to look away, and patiently sat back to let her work. No point in trying to stop her; he knew he was in need of medical treatment, and she knew what she was doing.

“Thanks, by the way,” he said at last, letting his eyelids droop closed once the light was turned off. Exhaustion was winning out over the rapidly-dwindling adrenaline.

Beside him, on the opposite side from the medkit, Vector settled down onto the bench, his long legs stretching out in front of him. His hand came to rest lightly on Theron’s thigh, giving him a few reassuring pats. Theron debated the relative merits of leaning against the Joiner and falling asleep, but concluded Miranza would probably swat at him again if he dozed off before she was finished doctoring him. He felt like he could sleep for a month, and with Miranza and Vector here he knew it was safe for him to do so. She would patch him up, and she and Vector would keep him safe. The presence of the two Mandalorians only served to further Theron’s feelings of safety: no one was going to mess with him when he had two Imperial spies and a pair of Mandalorian bounty hunters guarding his six.

Something beeped, and Theron opened his eyes again to see Miranza peering down at a med-scanner. She nodded to herself, apparently unconcerned – or at least unsurprised – with whatever she saw there, and set the scanner down on the bench beside Theron’s knee. He let his eyes drift closed again as he listened to her rummaging around in the medkit. He barely felt the hypospray she pressed against his arm, but he almost immediately felt the effects of whatever she’d injected him with. All at once a warm, fuzzy feeling settled over him, and Theron let out a small, contented sigh as he sagged against Vector, all his varied aches and pains seeming to disappear at once. He had a brief thought – that he must’ve really been in rough shape for Miranza to use the good stuff on him – before his head landed on Vector’s shoulder.

Theron drifted off to the sound of Vector humming a Killik lullaby and the sensation of Miranza smoothing a bandage into place, and Miranza let him rest.

O o O o O

_The planet stretched out before him, taking up almost the entirety of the viewscreen and filling his vision. Bright lights dotted the surface as spaceships took off, packed to the brim with evacuees from New Adasta and surrounding cities. He wondered, fleetingly, which light belonged to Theron’s ship, and what the likelihood was that they would have the chance to meet up with the SIS agent again. Beside him, Miranza and Lana shifted, the former reaching to grasp his hand, the latter speaking distractedly into her comm as she handled the minutiae of the planetary evacuation. He curled his fingers around his wife’s hand, savouring her warmth and strength, and admired the flickering dances of light that played across the planet’s aura, shifting in greens and blues and gold._

_It was Lana’s gasp – startled, aghast – that drew his attention away from the viewscreen. A momentary distraction, that was all, as he turned to see her pale face growing even whiter. When he turned back, following the line of her horrified gaze towards the window, he saw darkness sweeping over the surface of Ziost. The greens and blues and gold flared, briefly, as if millions of auras suddenly sparked as one, and then everything went dark. The planet’s surface blackened as all life flickered and died._

_Lana’s knees buckled, her Force senses overwhelmed by the sight before her. It was Miranza who reached out to catch the Sith lord, because he couldn’t turn away, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrors he was seeing._

_“Theron …” The name fell from his lips, and beside him he heard Miranza give a muffled cry as she reached the same awful conclusion he had reached._

_Theron was down there, on Ziost. Theron was –_

Vector came to with a gasp that sounded incredibly loud to his ears, almost as loud as his heart pounding inside his chest. Beside him Theron shifted, making a small pained noise as even that slight movement aggravated one of his many cuts and bruises, but he didn’t wake up. Vector was grateful; it had taken the other man a long time to fall asleep, the combination of lingering adrenaline and some kind of Zakuulan narcotic leaving him restless and agitated. Miranza likewise remained undisturbed, sleeping curled up on Theron’s other side. The bed on board the _Mercurial,_ the X-70B Phantom spaceship that Miranza had conveniently “borrowed” after the two of them had finally cut their ties with Imperial Intelligence, was not quite large enough for three adults to sleep comfortably together, but the three of them had a lot of practice at wrangling together in the small space, and after what had happened to Theron on Zakuul Vector didn’t mind cuddling the other man a bit closer for comfort’s sake.

He had thought it would help with the nightmares, but memories of Ziost continued to shadow Vector’s dreams. The planet had been destroyed over three years ago but Vector could still see the loss every time he closed his eyes, and the memory of it would be forever saved and shared by the Killik hive-mind. What he had seen, the Killiks had seen; what he had felt, they felt. Even the bright spot of knowing that Theron, at least, had survived – even that relief couldn’t take away from the horrors of what Vector had seen and experienced when every spark of life on the planet was snuffed out.

A warm hand curled around Vector’s bicep, and he turned his head, mustering up a wan smile for his wife. She peered over at him, her chin on her hand, propping her head up so that she could see over Theron’s still-slumbering form. Sleep-tousled blonde curls escaped from her loose braid to fall in her face. The flickering blue lights from the bank of communications equipment beside the bed made Miranza’s fair skin appear ghostly in the otherwise darkened cabin, and Vector had a brief, unsettling reminder of the times he had imagined her lost on Ziost along with Theron. Her grasp on his arm tightened as she saw the distress on his face. She knew about bad dreams. All three of them were experts on the subject.

“He’s safe,” she whispered, with a meaningful glance down at Theron. Her arm, stretched out across Theron’s back, rose and fell with the former SIS agent’s breathing. Her face was so close to Theron's head that her breath rustled his dark hair. “We’re all safe.”

“We know, beloved,” Vector whispered back, reaching up to cover Miranza’s hand with his own.

And he _did_ know. Miranza and Theron were there, with him, alive and mostly well. But Vector also knew that their safety was a fleeting thing. The assignments they were doing for Lana and Theron, trying to track down the man responsible for killing Emperor Valkorion, the man now known by Arcann and the whole of Zakuul as “the Outlander,” was dangerous work. This latest escapade with Theron and the slicer trap only served to show how precarious their safety was. To be certain their work was necessary, if there was ever to be any hope of freeing the galaxy from the might of the Eternal Empire and its power-hungry emperor, but after everything the three of them had gone through together, after all it had taken for them to be together, Vector often wished it could be someone else handling this work, and that the three of them could just be left alone. And yet just as soon as that thought entered his head, it disappeared, swept away by guilt and shame that he could even think such a thing – that he could be so greedy. The job needed to be done, and there was no suggesting that he, Theron and Miranza weren’t the best ones to do it. Some people were simply not meant to live quiet lives.

Tonight had been a setback. He and Miranza had succeeded in their tasks, yes, but Theron’s job – the more difficult job – had been the linchpin, and Theron had been interrupted before he could slice the databanks. They would have to try again, some other way. Vector had faith that they would succeed.

Vector rolled over onto his side, facing the middle of the bed, and planted a light kiss on Miranza’s hand where it had shifted to his other arm. Beside him Theron murmured in his sleep, his brow furrowing. The lights were out on his implant; they didn’t have the skills or the necessary equipment to effect repairs, and so their next stop would be to see a doctor who specialized in cybernetics (and discretion) who could get Theron’s implants back online. It meant the former SIS agent would be in some discomfort until the pain-modulator could be restored – or until his injuries healed, whichever came first. Theron’s pain tolerance was higher than most to begin with, even without the cranial implants, but at night when there was nothing else to distract him he felt the bruises a little more strongly.

Miranza’s hand slid away from Vector’s shoulder and skimmed over Theron’s back, stroking gently across his bare skin. The line between his brows eased somewhat. Vector brushed his fingertips over the other man’s cheek, mindful of the bruising, and smiled faintly to see the furrowing disappear entirely. Miranza let her head fall back onto her pillow, her hand still rubbing gentle circles over their lover’s back, her movements growing slower and slower until she, too, was asleep.

In the dim light from the communications equipment Vector watched his two partners sleep, letting the warmth and peace of their presence fill him, replacing the fear of his earlier nightmare. He knew he wouldn’t be able to drift off again himself, but this … this was enough. So long as they were together that would be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter was taken from the song "Crash! Boom! Bang!" by Roxette. My original plan for the three parts had been: "crashing" a party, explosions go "boom," and then my OT3 has sex (because I'm juvenile and think the word "bang" is hilarious), but things didn't quite go as planned.
> 
> Mandalorian:  
>  _Riduur_ \- husband, wife, spouse, partner  
>  _Osik_ \- dung (impolite)


	3. Comfortably Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in getting this chapter out, but I'm working on multiple chapters at once and want to post them in a linear fashion. As each chapter will be (more or less) it's own self-contained story, they take a bit more work because everything has to tie up as much as possible.

**_Nar Shaddaa, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

“Twins? Really?”

Miranza’s voice, raised slightly in order to be heard over the din from the crowded Promenade, was full of incredulity. Grinning, Theron shot her a nod and shrugged, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants as he adopted the slow, rolling gait of a spacer. Beside him Miranza matched his pace, gaze seeming to wander aimlessly from person to person as she kept a wary eye on the crowds. Nar Shaddaa wasn’t the safest of tourist destinations to begin with and the pair of them had experienced difficulties there in the past, leaving them both watchful and vaguely paranoid.

“Apparently,” Theron confirmed, pausing in mid-step to allow a pair of blue-skinned Twi’lek children to go racing past him. He turned to Miranza, still grinning.

“Fraternal twins, though, right?” Miranza stopped beside him, hooking her thumb through her belt, her fingers twitching restlessly against the holster strap of her blaster pistol. “If they were identical, they’d both be Jedi, wouldn’t they?”

Theron shrugged again. He was by no means an expert on the Force, but if he was any indication genetics were certainly not a sure-fire way to determine potential Force-sensitivity. Otherwise, the fact that he was the son of one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy – not to mention heir to a potent Force-sensitive bloodline dating back more than ten generations – would be proof-positive he ought to be a Jedi himself.

“It’s not like I’ve been running their genetic code through a sequencer or anything,” he said. “All I know is, Caedan is a Jedi and his twin brother Micah is not. Beats me if they’re identical twins. I didn’t ask. I got the impression from Micah that it was kind of a sensitive subject.” One Theron could relate to all too easily. He knew what it was like to feel as though he had failed his heritage, and that was just with a Force-sensitive mother. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be Micah, and to have his twin possess gifts he’d never be able to touch or comprehend.

Caedan Savarr was a Jedi knight Theron had run into while investigating the disaster that was Ziost. He hadn’t been one of the Sixth Line Jedi Theron had been working with, but had gotten involved through some tangled connections Theron wasn’t clear on – his master, or his master’s master, or some other Jedi relationship had an ally on Ziost who had disappeared, and Caedan had gone to investigate the disappearance as a favour to his friend. He’d seemed friendly enough, not that it had been the best of circumstances for him and Theron to get to know each other. If he hadn’t been a Jedi, and if Theron hadn’t already been somewhat tangentially involved with Miranza and Vector, Theron might have considered making a pass at him. But Caedan was a Jedi, and Theron’s relationship with the two Imperials had been complicated at the time – given that they were Imperials and the Empire and the Republic were very much at war – and so Theron had kept a cautious distance. Then Ziost had blown up in their faces and the whole galaxy had gone to shit, and flirting had been the last thing on Theron’s mind.

And _now_ Caedan Savarr, the man rumoured to have killed Emperor Valkorion, was lost or dead in Wild Space, and Lana had some crazy idea about rescuing him. The Zakuulans called him ‘the Outlander’; Lana thought that reputation, and Caedan’s previous penchant for saving the galaxy, would enable them to turn him into some kind of symbol of hope, uniting the galaxy to put an end to Emperor Arcann and the Eternal Fleet. Theron still wasn’t completely sold on Lana’s plan, but it was better than sitting on his ass on blockade-ridden Coruscant, watching the world fall apart and the noose tighten day by day around the Republic.

It had been through Micah, Caedan’s twin, that Theron had first caught word that the Outlander might still be alive. Micah maintained that he could still feel his brother – even across that vast distance of space – and refused to believe Caedan had been killed, despite Arcann’s statement of having executed him shortly after Valkorion’s assassination. The Jedi Order denied Micah’s claims; former Chancellor Saresh had threatened to throw him in prison on spurious charges. Micah Savarr was a Republic privateer and smuggler, and when his own people failed to help him track down his brother he had flown himself to Wild Space in order to look for him. Theron had been the one to make contact with him just before he and the Imperial spies crashed the party at a Zakuulan criminal syndicate’s headquarters, and Theron hadn’t had much time to fill Miranza in on the details.

“Do you believe him?” Miranza asked, moving again once the two kids were out of the way. Her voice was faintly skeptical, and Theron knew she wasn’t inquiring about Micah’s supposed lack of Force-sensitivity but rather whether or not he believed that Micah could sense his missing Jedi brother.

_Did_ Theron believe Micah? Theron didn’t know. He had only a beginner’s knowledge of the Force, instilled in him from a childhood at the knee of his mother’s mentor and master, Ngani Zho, the man who had raised Theron. Master Zho had always taught him that the Force moved in mysterious ways, so if Micah said he could still sense his brother – that Caedan Savarr, the Outlander, was _alive_ in spite of everything Emperor Arcann’s propaganda machine was saying – then who was Theron to judge? Maybe the twins were Force-bound in some way. Maybe Micah wasn’t as Force-blind as he said he was.

Or maybe it was just the last-ditch efforts of a grieving man to deny the truth of his beloved brother’s death, and they were on a wild convor chase.

“I think,” Theron began cautiously, choosing his words with care, “Micah believes he’s telling the truth. Whether or not he’s right …” He shrugged expansively and rubbed a hand over the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know.”

Miranza nodded, her dark blue eyes fixed on his face. She paused again, drawing in close to him, one hand cupping his chin so that she could tilt his head down towards hers. Her other hand brushed lightly over the cybernetic implants on his forehead.

“Another headache?” she asked him, searching his face. Theron nodded, and she sighed, expression sympathetic. “Well, not far now. Rekka’s specialist should be able to fix you up.”

Theron nodded again, falling into step beside her as they continued on their way. One of the many downsides to working as part of a cross-faction, slightly illicit alliance was an inability to make use of reputable services in the Republic or the Empire. His implants, badly fried from the slicer trap on Zakuul, were still offline and none of his usual specialists were safe for him to see, all of them reporting in one way or another to someone Theron would rather _not_ know what he was up to. The Republic officially had a treaty in place with the Eternal Empire, which meant that Theron’s efforts to track down Caedan and establish an alliance technically amounted to treason. (Especially the efforts that involved him working with a handful of Imperials – never mind his extracurricular activities with two of them.) He’d come perilously close to being arrested the last time he was on Coruscant – the Zakuulan blockade made getting in and out of Coruscant a nightmare, even for a man of Theron’s considerable talents – and while he was skilled at moving about undetected it wasn’t a great idea for him to go back there to get his implants repaired. Miranza had done what she could, capping off the open sockets to reduce the risk of further damage to his implants – or worse, a brain infection from exposure through his cranial ports – but she didn’t have the training to do more than cursory surface repairs. Theron was uncomfortably reliant upon his implants and their resulting absence led to headaches as his mind tried to adjust to the lack of input, his eyes and ears overcompensating for the absent stimuli. He tried telling himself it was a minor inconvenience at most, but a recent assignment post-Zakuul had landed him in bed with a three-day migraine, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that something needed to be done.

Fortunately, Rekka Vyziari had implants of her own. Theron had noted them before, of course; although she typically wore her traditional Mandalorian helmet out in the field, Theron had seen her without it often enough to have noticed the cybernetics attached to both ears and above her left eye. She’d been born deaf and the auditory implants enabled her to hear, while the ocular implant provided her with enhancements that assisted her in her work as a bounty hunter. She was completely open when discussing the former, but equally vague when it came to discussing the latter. It had been Barrazhat, Rekka’s husband, who had cautiously suggested Theron approach Rekka’s cybernetics specialist about getting his cranial implants repaired. Theron had the impression that Rekka didn’t like sharing information, and that while she trusted Theron, she wasn’t comfortable with him having access to the person responsible for maintaining her cybernetics, as if she somehow expected that the doctor would spill all her secrets to the former Republic agent. (He couldn’t say that he blamed her, considering a big part of his reasoning for not going to his own specialist on Coruscant was concern that the doctor would inform Saresh or his mother. He’d been in the Intelligence business for far too long to fully trust in the concept of doctor/patient confidentiality.) Barrazhat and Vector had convinced her, however, and she had grudgingly contacted her specialist to arrange an appointment.

Rekka and Barrazhat had a bounty on Nar Shaddaa – another downside of working for the resistance was that it didn’t pay the bills, and so they were all forced to take on other jobs in order to keep their ships fueled, their stomachs full and a roof of dubious quality over their heads – and had dropped Theron and Miranza off to meet with Rekka’s doctor friend. And while Theron _needed_ to have his implants repaired, he was feeling a certain amount of trepidation at permitting a complete stranger to be the one to do the work. This was his _brain_ they would be granted access to, after all. It certainly didn’t help that Vector was away on Alderaan, handling important Killik affairs. The extra backup would have been appreciated.

“Do you trust this guy?” Theron asked, as the two of them grew closer to their destination. The doctor’s clinic was in a fairly high-end section of Nar Shaddaa, which boosted Theron’s estimation of him somewhat. Not that clinics in poor neighbourhoods couldn’t still be good, safe clinics – but on Nar Shaddaa the policing was sporadic at best, since so many of the illegal operations were discreetly funded out of Hutt purses, and in a wealthier area such as this it was less likely that people would go missing or ‘accidents’ would happen without the authorities taking an interest.

Miranza glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “No. I’ve never even met him. But I trust Rekka.”

That made sense to Theron, and he nodded. “Yeah, I guess in her line of work her word is her –”

“I trust that she knows what I’ll do to her if she ever tries to sell you out,” Miranza continued, speaking over him. Her voice had gone as cold and hard as ice, and Theron paused in his steps, staring at her.

“I thought you _liked_ Rekka.”

“Of course I like Rekka,” Miranza assured him. She hadn’t even slowed down, and so he had to speed up a bit to catch up with her. She was silent for a few seconds before adding quietly, “But I _love_ you.”

“You’re terrifying, you know that, right?”

Miranza just shot Theron a small, hard smile and winked at him over her shoulder. He shook his head but continued to follow her. Miranza _was_ terrifying, at times – but he wouldn’t have her any other way, and there was a part of him that secretly appreciated her willingness to throw down on his behalf. It had taken the three of them a considerable amount of time and effort to get to this point, but Theron knew exactly where he stood in Miranza and Vector’s estimation, and the lengths to which they were willing to go through for each other. Theron couldn’t claim to be any less fiercely protective of Miranza than she was of him. For a brief moment Theron remembered Corellia: the flash of bright-red blood on a pillow and the weight of a dead man on his back – and then, on Coruscant, an Alderaanian nobleman and the horrified look on his face as Theron sank the vibroknife into his chest. Yes, Theron had a very good idea how far the three of them were willing to go for each other.

The doors to the clinic opened with a soft whoosh as Theron and Miranza approached them, revealing a small but welcoming reception area, brightly-lit with holographic posters depicting the various available implants. There was a row of black leatheris and metal-framed chairs along one wall, with a low transparisteel caf table set in front and matching end tables on either side. Theron could see the usual assortment of reading materials spread across the tables: magazines, pamphlets, even a glossy-looking “How to Care for Your Implants” guide done up in flimsi. A grey-skinned Sullustan woman stood behind the admissions desk, looking up and blinking shiny black eyes at the two new arrivals. Aside from her the waiting area was empty, which didn’t come as much of a surprise to Theron: Rekka’s specialist _only_ dealt in high-end implants, and while Theron was certain it was a lucrative business, odds were good it wasn’t a terribly _busy_ one.

“Good morning!” the Sullustan said cheerfully, smoothing down the front of her crisp white tunic. “Welcome to the clinic. How can I help you? Do you have an appointment with Doctor Mierrot?”

“I’m Silas Trant,” Theron replied, giving the receptionist the fake name Rekka had provided him and internally grimacing at her decision to use his old employer’s surname. For all that the clinic was – so far as Theron knew – on the up-and-up, he hadn’t wanted to give his real name or have his real identity on record. There were far too many people in the galaxy who would find a rogue SIS agent – not to mention the son of the former Grand Master of the Jedi Order and the current Supreme Commander of the Republic military – too good to pass up on, and Theron would just as soon remain anonymous. Rekka had assured him of Mierrot’s discretion, but secrecy was a hard habit to break. “One of Doctor Mierrot’s patients referred me?”

“Ah, yes, yes.” The Sullustan woman nodded, looking down at her desk and what Theron assumed was the daily appointment schedule. She smiled again. “Please have a seat, Mr. Trant. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

Theron and Miranza sat down in the padded leatheris seats, both of them adopting casual postures out of long practice even as their eyes roamed the reception area. The clinic had discreet but decent security: holocams over the entrance, motion sensors on the main door as well as the hallway leading into what Theron assumed were the examination rooms, and what looked like a biometric locking system for the storage area where the implants and medications were likely kept. It made sense: for all that this was a good neighbourhood Nar Shaddaa was a dangerous place, and a clinic like this, with primarily well-to-do clientele and specializing in top-of-the-line implants, would be an ideal target for thieves hoping to make a quick buck. An after-hours burglary would net criminals a decent amount of credits just from drugs and cybernetics alone.

“Still good?” Miranza asked, her gaze seemingly fixed on the datapad in her hand, the screen flashing on an article about the top five exercises women could do to improve their sex lives.

Dragging his own eyes away from one of the holo-adverts on the wall – this one was of a small Zabrak child with aural implants smiling adoringly up at a human doctor – Theron shrugged and rubbed a hand over his own implants. “I need to get this done, right?”

It was Miranza’s turn to shrug, and the look she gave him was measuring. “Yes, but it’s your call. I trust Rekka, but I don’t know this doctor, and it’s _your_ brain he’s going to be messing with. I’d feel better about this if Rekka were here with us.”

“Yeah.” Theron rubbed his hands on his pants, grateful to know that Miranza shared some of his misgivings. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Rekka – even without the bounty hunter’s perfectly reasonable and healthy fear of what Miranza would do if Theron were to be screwed over, they’d been working together for a while now and he’d placed his life in her hands on numerous occasions. But as Miranza had said, they didn’t know the doctor outside of what Rekka had told them about him, and this wasn’t just some regular checkup. The man was going to be repairing Theron’s cranial implants. It would’ve been easier if Rekka and Barrazhat were here.

But Doctor Mierrot was – unsurprisingly – rather expensive, and their grass-roots resistance movement was continuously low on credits. None of them wanted to owe money in Hutt space. Rekka and Barrazhat needed to bring their bounty in; the contract would help pay for not just Theron’s appointment, but also fuel for the _Mercurial_ and a much-needed restocking of their supplies. They could reschedule the appointment with Doctor Mierrot for a time when Rekka could be present, but Theron would rather just get it over with.

Theron was about to say something to that effect when the Sullustan woman came out from behind her desk and gestured towards him. “Doctor Mierrot will see you now, Mr. Trant.”

Miranza stood with him, and for a moment the Sullustan frowned, giving the blonde agent an assessing glance. Finally she gave a short nod and said, “You can come back with him, ma’am, but only for the examination. If Doctor Mierrot decides to operate on Mr. Trant, you will need to come back out here.”

Miranza gave Theron a long look. “Is that all right with you?”

Theron nodded. He’d rather have her there, but he could understand that the specialist would prefer to minimize the number of people crowded into the surgical space. He imagined that probably came up a lot – nervous parents wanting to keep an eye on their children, anxious spouses wanting to stay together. He was a grown man; he didn’t need his girlfriend to hold his hand during surgery.

The Sullustan led Theron and Miranza down the hall past the reception area and into a small examination room. It was as clean and brightly-lit as the rest of the clinic, and as Theron settled himself onto the exam table, sterile flimsi paper crinkling under him, he was reassured by the normalcy of it all. The exam room was no different than any other such place he had been to over the years since he’d first had his implants installed – in fact, it was a marked improvement on some of the clinics he’d had to go to. He could have been on Coruscant, rather than Nar Shaddaa.

“Doctor Mierrot will be with you shortly,” the Sullustan said, giving the two of them one last smile before slipping out the door.

“Last chance,” Miranza cautioned Theron. She leaned her hip against the counter and folded her arms across her chest, giving Theron another assessing glance.

“It’s fine,” Theron assured her. “I’m ready to get my implants back online.”

Miranza opened her mouth to say something further but was interrupted when the door opened, and a tall human man in a lab coat entered the exam room. He was a fairly non-descript-looking man with dark hair and dark eyes, and he paused briefly in the doorway to look at Miranza before turning his attention to Theron and smiling.

“Mr. Trant, I take it?” he asked, raising one bushy eyebrow.

“That’s me,” Theron confirmed, as Miranza moved away to let the doctor come in for a look.

After a brief discussion of what caused Theron’s implants to short out – Theron was light on the details, since even with doctor/patient confidentiality he didn’t feel like explaining that he’d been attacked by a trap specifically designed to target slicers illegally breaking into a criminal syndicate’s data servers – Doctor Mierrot took an abbreviated patient history and then conducted a short exam. Theron had been through this before on a number of occasions and knew the drill, but he still felt intensely uncomfortable having someone poking and prodding at his face. The doctor’s hands were warm through his synthskin gloves as he tilted Theron’s head one way or another in order to get a closer look at the damaged implants. His face was carefully expressionless, his eyes fixed on the cybernetics.

“Well,” Doctor Mierrot said finally, backing away and stripping off his gloves, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is there doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage to the ports or sockets themselves, and your skin seems to be healing nicely around the implants. The bad news is, the cybernetics are pretty much pooched. Now, if you’re from here or if you’re planning on sticking around on Nar Shaddaa for the next few days I can take the implants out and get one of my techs to fix them up for you. If you’re in a rush, though, the best I can do is remove them and permanently cap the ports. No more implants, but no more risk of infection, either. The temp caps you’ve got on now will hold for the time being, but they’re not made to be permanent.”

Theron exchanged glances with Miranza, watching her shrug again. In truth he had no idea how long they were planning on staying on Nar Shaddaa: it depended on a variety of factors, not the least of which included how much time it took for Barrazhat and Rekka to complete their bounty contract. He knew they weren’t in a rush and that their job would take as long as it took, but there was a limit to how much time they could afford to spend on the Smuggler’s Moon. Nar Shaddaa was expensive. Even a cheap flophouse would seriously eat into their stash of credits, and that wasn’t even considering how much the replacement implants or the surgery itself would cost. On the bright side at least they wouldn’t need to worry about Vector getting impatient for a pickup; he could stay safe and happy with the Oroboro Nest on Alderaan for as long as was necessary, although both Theron and Miranza would have preferred him on Nar Shaddaa with them.

“I guess I’m sticking around,” Theron said finally, with a shrug of his own. “I need these fixed.”

“Fair enough,” replied Doctor Mierrot. He glanced uncertainly at Miranza before adding, “If you’ve got the time now I can take the cybernetics out and get them to my tech right away?”

Theron nodded. “Sure, sounds good.”

“All right, then.” Doctor Mierrot gestured for Theron to hop down off the examination table and began leading him down the hall, away from the reception area. When Miranza moved to follow the doctor gave her an apologetic smile and informed her that at this point she would need to return to the waiting area, as the surgical theatre was for medical staff and patients only. For a moment Theron thought Miranza was going to fight Doctor Mierrot on this, but she eventually conceded the issue and headed back the way they’d originally come.

As with the rest of the clinic the surgical theatre was much like any other Theron had ever seen: clean, bright, with a padded table for the patient to lay on and an array of medical equipment along one side. Doctor Mierrot showed Theron to a small private area where he could remove his jacket and shirt, and put on a crisp pale green hospital gown that tied up in the back. The doctor assured Theron he could simply leave his pants on; the gown was just to ensure no blood or surgical gel got on Theron’s clothes. Theron knew from many, many past experiences that head wounds tended to bleed a lot, and he appreciated not having to worry about getting blood all over his favourite jacket.

By the time Theron had changed and was hastily tying the gown behind his back, Doctor Mierrot and a male Rodian he didn’t recognize were in the middle of prepping the surgical equipment. The Rodian was dressed in ill-fitting surgical scrubs that looked like they were a size or two too big, but his movements were deft and quick as he slid a sheet of fresh flimsi-paper over the padded table and gave the seat a pat, indicating for Theron to climb up and lay down.

As Theron settled back onto the table the Rodian wheeled over a large cart that held the anaesthetic equipment on it. He held the mask out to Theron, but Theron waved him off, giving him a vaguely mistrustful look.

“Apologies, Mr. Trant,” said Doctor Mierrot, noticing the clash of wills taking place behind him. “The procedure is somewhat uncomfortable, so I typically prefer to put my patients under before starting the work. It’s as much for your own safety as it is for your comfort: we don’t want you grabbing at the vibroscalpel or pushing at my hands while I’m in the middle of surgery.”

“No drugs,” Theron said curtly.

The Rodian and Doctor Mierrot looked at one another, and finally Doctor Mierrot said slowly, “Well … I suppose we could restrain you? Your hands, at least, although I don’t fancy being kicked, either.”

“I won’t fight,” Theron protested, but Doctor Mierrot gave him an amused look.

“You say that, and I do believe you mean it, but I’m not willing to take the risk.” Doctor Mierrot sighed. “It’s your call, really. We can put you under, we can restrain you so you don’t flail about, or we can do this another time, once you’ve had a chance to discuss the options with your wife. It’s up to you.”

It took Theron a moment to parse that by ‘your wife’ the doctor was referring to Miranza, and that thought was almost enough to distract him from the mutual fears of being anaesthetized or restrained, neither of which appealed to him in the slightest. It was tempting – incredibly, _incredibly_ tempting – to call the whole thing off and head back out to the waiting area and Miranza. Theron didn’t want to be drugged into unconsciousness and he didn’t want to be restrained, even if it was just his hands and even if he suspected he could easily slip free of medical-grade restraints. But Doctor Mierrot was the only cybernetics specialist Theron had access to at present, and his options were extremely limited. If he chose to leave, he had no way of knowing how or when his implants would be repaired, and while he was certainly capable of functioning without them he really, _really_ didn’t want that.

“Restraints,” he said finally, shoving down the burst of anxiety that filled him at the thought of being tied down. It was only the fact that he _could_ free himself that made him choose the restraints over his other options.

“Excellent, Mr. Trant, thank you.” Doctor Mierrot nodded for the Rodian to attend to matters, and went back to prepping his equipment.

Theron closed his eyes and bit down on the inside of his cheek as the Rodian wrapped the thick cloth pads around first his left wrist and then his right. Once the restraints were in place Theron gave them an experimental tug; they had no give, but he remained confident that he could get out of them if he needed to – he’d had a lot of practice getting himself out of handcuffs, stun-cuffs and other types of restraints, and these soft, padded cloth ones wouldn’t give him much trouble at all. He knew his discomfort had more to do with his own past experiences than the present situation, and he suspected that once this was all over he was going to be spending a few sleepless nights cuddled between Vector and Miranza, fighting off nightmares.

“Ready, Mr. Trant?” Doctor Mierrot asked, donning a fresh pair of synthskin gloves. “I’ll just have Rollo apply some topical anaesthetic around your implants to minimize your discomfort, and we’ll be good to go.”

The Rodian – Rollo, apparently – moved into Theron’s field of view, leaning over him. Being that up close and personal with the Rodian, Theron’s gaze fixed on the other man’s ill-fitting scrubs, and he noticed a bright red spot just under the little pocket sewn into the front of the tunic. The spot looked –

_Fresh._ It looked fresh.

Jerking away in surprise, Theron opened his mouth to question the Rodian’s professionalism just as the mask fell over his face, and as he sucked in air to speak he was drawing in anaesthetic instead. He tried to pull away, but even as he turned his head the Rodian pressed the mask down harder, ensuring it remained pressed directly over Theron’s nose and mouth. Theron tried desperately to fight, but within seconds the gas was pulling him under, and the last thing he saw before his eyes closed was Doctor Mierrot bringing the vibroscalpel towards his face.

O o O o O

In the holovids whenever the hero was knocked out by the bad guy his return to consciousness came suddenly: a panicked gasp, his eyes flashing open as he bolted upright from whatever prone position he’d been lying in, and he’d maybe be grasping at his heaving chest for good measure. Theron had had a lot of rude awakenings over the years, but this time around the process of regaining consciousness was a slow, gradual thing, rather like swimming to the surface of a very deep and murky lake while seaweed and mud tried to pull him back down to the bottom. It felt like an eternity before he was able to so much as open his eyes.

When Theron did – _finally_ – open his eyes, the first thing he saw was Doctor Mierrot – or rather, his corpse, slumped across Theron’s chest, his dark eyes glazed over and staring sightlessly at something in the distance. Theron gasped, struggling instinctively to try and push the body away from him, but his wrists were still restrained and the weight on his chest pinned him further. Panic immediately set in, his mind fighting to distinguish between his present circumstances and the horrible memories that were beginning to assail him. He let out a weak whimper, sounding not so much like himself as like some terrified, trapped creature as he jerked against the restraints.

The weight was suddenly lifted away as Doctor Mierrot’s body was dragged off of Theron to land with a wet smack onto the floor, and then Miranza was there, tugging impatiently at the cuffs binding Theron’s wrists in place and murmuring reassuring nonsense.

Her movements were slow and clumsy, and between Theron fighting to free himself and her own awkward efforts it took too long to get the cuffs off Theron. By the time he was free he was in full-on panic mode, all but toppling off the table in his desperate need to get away. He hit the ground hard, scrabbling onto his hands and knees, getting the flap of his hospital gown caught under one knee while his opposite hand slipped across blood-slick tiles. _There was so much blood …_

Catching sight of Doctor Mierrot’s body Theron discovered that the dead human was the source of most of the blood: his throat had been slashed from ear to ear and he’d bled out over the floor, the exam table, everywhere.

“Theron –”

A hand fell on Theron’s shoulder and he acted on instinct, lashing out with his right hand closed in a fist. The impact reverberated up his arm to his shoulder as his fist connected with something very warm and very solid, but it was the shrill cry of pain that made him come back to himself.

Miranza was huddled on the floor beside him, one hand clutched to her jaw and the other held up as if to ward off further attack. Her blue eyes were wide with shock and pain, and Theron belatedly noticed that half her face was covered in blood.

_Did I do that?_

“Theron, get up,” Miranza hissed, shoving herself to her feet. She staggered a little and would have fallen had she not managed to catch herself on the edge of the table. He made an aborted attempt to help her up only to pull back before he could touch her, his hand – knuckles scraped and bloodied from where his fist had connected with her face – dropping down to his side. She frowned at him but didn’t comment on his hesitancy, instead only saying, “We don’t have time for this. Get up, we need to get going.”

Miranza left for a moment, ducking into the tiny change-room to retrieve Theron’s clothes and gear. Theron forced himself up off the floor, his left foot sliding under him as he slipped in some more of Doctor Mierrot’s blood. When Miranza came back out she shoved the bundle of clothing at him and motioned towards the exit. Tossing his blood-stained hospital gown onto the floor, Theron yanked his shirt on over his head and began moving, walking and donning his jacket at the same time. He ignored the blood and the dead body, focusing instead on following Miranza out of the surgical theatre and back into the clinic hallway. He noticed – as much because he was deliberately concentrating on Miranza rather than the scenery around him as because he was observant – that she seemed unsteady on her feet, but unlike him she wasn’t slipping in the blood. Instead she was weaving precariously, pausing at one point to support herself against the wall. She held a blaster pistol in her other hand, the barrel aimed at the ground, her hand white-knuckled around the grip. Theron knew _he_ was still feeling shaky because of the anaesthetic (not to mention the ever-present panic that coiled in his gut at having woken up restrained), but so far as he knew _she_ hadn’t been subjected to the same treatment.

Rollo the Rodian was lying facedown in the hallway, blaster burns scorched into the back of his scrubs. Like the doctor, the Rodian was quite obviously dead, and Theron strongly suspected the pistol in Miranza’s good hand to be the cause. The burns were all over the place, rather than neatly targeted around the dead man’s centre mass, and Theron could see more scorch marks on the walls from where Miranza had – uncharacteristically – missed. Before Miranza could get more than a few steps away from him Theron caught her by the wrist, pulling her to a stop. She turned to him, opening her mouth to urge him on or protest their sudden stop, but instead she pulled away from him and was quietly sick on the floor.

_Concussion,_ Theron immediately thought, having once again caught sight of the blood on her face and realizing that it came from a rather large bump on her forehead instead of from his panicked punch. He waited for her to finish throwing up, then drew her towards himself and, catching her face in his hands, tilted her chin up so that he could get a better look at the gash on her head.

“What the kriff happened?” he demanded, checking her eyes. He wasn’t surprised to see one pupil larger than the other, the dark blue iris reduced to a narrow band of colour.

“Doctor Mierrot’s dead,” Miranza replied unnecessarily. Theron opened his mouth to tell her that yeah, he _knew_ Doctor Mierrot was dead, he’d woken up with the man’s corpse lying on him, he’d kind of _noticed,_ but she cut him off with a shake of her head – which she immediately regretted, if the grimace and groan were any indication. “No, the _real_ Doctor Mierrot. Him, the receptionist, his whole team – their bodies are in the vault where the drugs and tech are kept. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, but long enough that they’re starting to decompose – that’s what tipped me off, I could smell it when the vault was opened.”

“And your head?” Because as much as Theron wanted to be upset over the deaths of Doctor Mierrot and his team, he hadn’t actually _known_ any of them and frankly he was much more concerned about the woman he loved, who was still looking several shades of green.

“I had a disagreement with one of the fake doctor’s thugs.” Miranza gestured vaguely towards another body down the hall, this one a human male wearing the same sort of scrubs the Rodian had worn. Theron couldn’t tell if the man was dead or merely unconscious, and so long as he wasn’t a threat, Theron didn’t particularly care, either.

“Oh, a ‘disagreement,’ huh?”

“Well, I won, of course.” It was Miranza’s turn to cup her hands around his face, and Theron watched her mismatched eyes as they scanned over his features, her gaze lingering on his implants. He couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be having trouble focusing, and he was about to comment on it when she released him and stepped back, saying, “I don’t think they had time to do anything to your implants, but we should probably get you checked out.”

“Do anything?” Theron realized he was starting to parrot her, but his mind was slow to catch up. He blamed the lingering anaesthetic.

“Yes.” Miranza started moving again, retrieving her blaster pistol from its holster where she had left it in order to examine Theron’s implants. “As best as I can determine, Mierrot’s clinic was targeted by thieves looking to steal and resell high-end cybernetics. I don’t think we were the specific targets – well, I think _you_ were, but not because of who you are. I’m not sure they had any idea who ‘Silas Trant’ really was, other than a human male with top-of-the-line implants. Even damaged, the hardware in your head would sell for a respectable price.”

Theron shuddered at the idea, but he couldn’t dispute her logic. It was a strange thought, to discover that for once in his life he was being targeted not because he was Theron Shan, but simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong accessories. Fate – or the Force, which had never been Theron’s friend in the first place – was seldom so random.

“That’s a lot of bother to go through just to steal some implants,” he mused.

“Yes,” Miranza agreed. “But it would be a relatively simple thing for an experienced team to come in here, subdue or kill the doctor and his staff, and then take their places. Mierrot’s patients likely wouldn’t think anything of a new receptionist, and she’s the gatekeeper – she brings the patient back to one of the exam rooms, and from there it’s easy pickings.”

“Why go through the bother of examining me, though?”

“To determine whether or not your implants are something they want?” Miranza shrugged, then continued, “I think they were used to … softer … targets. I don’t think they were expecting us. Most people wouldn’t immediately suspect either of us is the least bit dangerous, but professionals – which these people obviously were – would make us on the spot. The Sullustan, you could tell she didn’t want me to go back there with you, but when I – when _we_ – insisted she had to improvise. I’d like to investigate further, but …”

Trailing off, Miranza swayed where she stood for a moment, and Theron quickly hooked his arm around her waist to keep her from toppling over. A wave of dizziness hit him and he found himself holding onto her as much to support himself as to keep her upright. Under different circumstances he might have found the situation amusing – the two of them clinging to each other in order to avoid passing out where they stood – but he wasn’t laughing now.

“We need to get you to a med centre,” he said, once his own wooziness was under control. “I think you’ve got a pretty bad concussion.”

“You would know,” Miranza muttered under her breath, but loudly enough that given their close proximity he had no trouble hearing her. He snorted, but couldn’t disagree.

The two of them staggered out of the clinic, Miranza guiding the way by clinging to Theron and simply lurching in the direction she wanted to go, all but dragging him along with her. Theron wasn’t as familiar with this part of the Nar Shaddaa Promenade as Miranza was, the area being more favoured by Imperials than by the Republic, but he recognized the standard med centre they were headed for as one he had visited in the past after an op gone bad. The area might have been more popular with Imperials, but the med centre itself was neutral. It also had the convenient factor of being the one closest to the clinic – a relatively short stumbling distance, thank the Force.

As they approached the med centre, one last thought struck Theron, and he turned to Miranza with a worried expression on his face.

“You’re … uh … you’re not gonna kill Rekka, are you?”

Miranza blinked owlishly at him for a moment, no doubt struggling to parse this seeming non sequitur. Then, remembering their conversation from earlier, she blinked again and shook her head, the movement once more causing her to wince and close her eyes briefly.

“No, I’m not going to kill Rekka,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I don’t think she had anything to do with this.” She sighed, then added almost wistfully, “Besides, I’m all killed out.”

It was Theron’s turn to blink and stare dumbfounded. When at last a small twitch at the corner of Miranza’s lips betrayed her amusement he let out a tiny sigh of relief.

“Have I mentioned lately that you’re terrifying?” he asked, only half-joking. “Because you’re terrifying.”

“You may have mentioned that in passing, yes,” Miranza replied, the small twitch turning into a wry smirk. “Admit it, though – you secretly love it.”

Pulling Miranza in close, Theron pressed his lips to hers, noting the faint coppery tang on her mouth. When the kiss broke he murmured against her mouth, “Nothing secret about it.”

Theron draped his arm around Miranza’s waist, and together the two of them staggered into the med centre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter is from the song "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Not that anyone is comfortable in this chapter. ;)


	4. Down With the Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crumpet attempts to write a sickfic, and things go about as well as you might expect.

_**Wild Space, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“You’re supposed to be resting, love.”

Not that Miranza was the least bit surprised by the sight of her husband sitting hunched over the table in the conference room, a pile of datapads in front of him and a soft, woollen blanket draped around his shoulders. Vector looked up at her from his work and gave her a weary smile.

“We would hardly call this” – he gestured meaningfully at his cozy spot, his splayed hands spanning to include the blanket, the box of tissues and the empty mug beside him – “wearying, beloved. We would simply prefer to be finishing our report for Lana, rather than attempting to sleep whilst worrying about it. Besides, we are not tired.”

Sweeping away the empty mug and replacing it with one filled with still-steaming tea, Miranza gave him a stern look, then settled down in the chair beside him and fished the thermometer out of the pocket of her cardigan. They’d been forced to lower the temperature on the _Mercurial_ in order to save credits on fuel, which had necessitated her digging out her warmer apparel to keep warm. An added benefit of her ancient and well-worn cardigan was that it had deep pockets, enabling her to carry around various odds and ends. And lately, those ‘odds and ends’ had included a bundle of fresh tissues and a thermometer.

As Vector obediently opened his mouth for her to pop the thermometer under his tongue she gave him a long, assessing gaze. For all that he might _say_ he wasn’t tired, Vector _looked_ exhausted: there were huge bags under his eyes and his skin had taken on a greyish cast, save for his poor nose which was reddened from constant sniffling and sneezing. His voice, far from his usual melodious, strangely liquid cadences, was hoarse and raspy, in part due to what he said felt like some sort of slimy coating inside his throat, but mostly – Miranza suspected – due to the horrible, wracking cough he’d had for the past few days.

Under normal circumstances Miranza was not the sort to play nursemaid. As someone who had worked through illness and injuries, she had little patience for coddling someone with a cold, and Vector was a grown man who was fully capable of taking care of himself. However, Miranza could count on one hand – and still, she thought, have fingers left over – the number of times Vector had come down with a cold or the flu. His enhanced Killik physiology ensured he was highly resistant to most viruses, and on the incredibly rare occasions he did get sick it was over and done with in a day or so. This time around, though, the infection Vector had caught was – according to Vector himself and the other Joiners Miranza had spoken to – something specific to Killik and Joiner biology, which was not believed to be infectious to anyone else. That, at least, was something of a relief; ever since his foray on Planet Bumblefucknowhere and the infection he had received from the swamps there, Theron had been noticeably susceptible to chest and head colds. And whatever the illness was (no doubt it had some incredibly evocative and poetic name in the Killik language), it had hit Vector hard, for all that he was pretending otherwise.

The thermometer chirruped, signalling that it was ready to be checked. Miranza withdrew it from Vector’s mouth and nudged the fresh mug of tea closer to him before reading the digital display. _39.5° Celsius._ For a human that was definitely cause for concern; for Vector, though, it was only a mild fever, as he typically ran warm. Still, Miranza would have preferred no fever at all, and mentally tallied up the remaining supply of antipyretics on hand. Not enough. She sighed.

They had restocked their medical supplies on Corellia while Theron was – finally – getting his implants fixed, but when making a list of what was needed Miranza had been more focused on things like bandages, splints, painkillers and kolto, rather than medicines for colds, fevers and viruses. Frankly, the three of them tended to get hurt far more often than they got sick, and she just hadn’t worried about anything else. Their credits were still limited, even with Barrazhat and Rekka pulling in a decent chunk of change from their latest bounties, and even if she had considered a need for cold and flu medication she likely would have discarded the notion as being a waste of credits. Most of the time their cold medication expired before they could use it up, anyway.

“We suspect from your silence that you are displeased with the results of the thermometer?” Vector queried, taking a small sip of his tea and closing his eyes in appreciation. He was normally the one who made the tea for the three of them, but Miranza was a fair hand at it, and she knew he likely didn’t have the energy for mucking about in the galley. She had chosen a chamomile-mint blend that would hopefully help him rest, and had added in a dollop of honey to soothe his throat.

She showed him the readout on the thermometer, and he nodded as though unsurprised.

“I might need to send Theron on a supply run to Asylum,” she said quietly, tucking the thermometer back in her pocket. He gave her a curious look, and she elaborated, “We’re low on cold medication and down to maybe one or two more doses of anti-febrile meds.”

“You needn’t bother on our account,” Vector assured her earnestly. “A few days of rest and we will be fine.” A sudden fit of coughing rather spoiled his promises, and Miranza shook her head, wincing at how rough he sounded.

“You should go back to bed.” Miranza stood, pushing her chair back in and holding out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation Vector took it in his own – far warmer – hand and let her pull him to his feet, his blanket still draped around his shoulders. Leaving his tea discarded on the table along with the datapads Miranza escorted Vector to his private berth on the ship. While most of the time the three of them preferred to share a bed there were some occasions when it was simply easiest to sleep separately, and Vector hadn’t wanted his coughing and tossing and turning to keep Miranza and Theron up at night. With the rest of Miranza’s former crew gone off on their own various enterprises there was plenty of room on the _Mercurial_ for all three of them to have their own private berth, and the captain’s cabin was for when they felt like sharing.

Miranza helped Vector back into bed before returning to the conference room to retrieve his tea in case he wanted to drink more before attempting sleep. The datapads and notes he’d been making could wait until he was feeling better; she was willing to bet that the Star Fortress over Alderaan would still be there when he woke up. _More's the pity._

Her next stop was the medbay to retrieve some cooling gel-packs. While she was there Miranza did another quick assessment of their medical supplies, grimly confirming that she had been correct in that they didn’t have nearly enough to deal with a serious or lengthy illness. Vowing to come back and do up a proper list for Theron to take down to Asylum, she collected the gel-packs and one of the remaining fever medications – along with a couple of painkillers to treat the aches and pains that Vector was pretending he wasn’t experiencing – and went back to Vector’s cabin. She was unsurprised to find him propped up in bed, datapad in one hand, tea in the other.

“No,” Miranza said firmly, taking the datapad from him and turning it off. Tucking the datapad under her arm so that she could take it out of the room with her, she handed him the pills and watched him dutifully swallow them down with some of his tea. Miranza then motioned for Vector to lay down and, when he complied – giving her the most charmingly boyish smile that she nearly thought better of herself and returned the datapad to him – she gently placed one of the gel-packs at the back of his neck. Vector flinched at first before settling back against the cooling pack, his eyes closing at the blissfully chilly sensation. She positioned a second gel-pack over his eyes, then ran her fingers through his dark hair.

“Get some sleep, love,” she murmured, dropping a kiss on his forehead. He mumbled something by way of acknowledgement and settled into bed.

Vector settled – at least until the next time she caught him roaming the ship – Miranza went back to the medbay to do a proper accounting of their supplies. Vector could protest all he wanted, but it had been short-sighted of her not to procure a more diverse assortment of medication and equipment. It simply hadn’t occurred to her; the three of them were sick so rarely, and when they were sick it was scarcely anything to be concerned over. Given that the bulk of the time they were in the medbay, it was because one of them – usually Theron; he was so bloody reckless it drove her mad sometimes – was injured, her focus had been on acquiring the supplies they would need to treat those injuries. Miranza knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they couldn’t get more medicine, but she hated the idea of Vector suffering when there was the chance she could do something to fix it.

Sorting out a proper list took longer than she had originally planned, but once she got started on it Miranza realized it only made sense to go through all the cabinets and drawers in the medbay to make sure this time around she wasn’t missing anything. As it turned out things weren’t quite as bad as she had thought: while they were unfortunately low on medications to treat fevers and manage colds, their other medical supplies were in good shape, even the less-important (to her mind) things like antacids and laxatives. Once she was done she had a fairly reasonable list for Theron to take down to Asylum, with the things they most urgently needed ordered (and also bolded, italicized and underlined for good measure, not that Theron didn’t know how to prioritize without her holding his hand, but it made her feel better to do it).

After a quick check on Vector – sleeping, finally; she hadn’t wanted to wake him to check his temperature, but she thought his cheeks felt cooler, at least – Miranza made her way to the bridge, where Theron had been making some minor adjustments to the navicomputer in an attempt to circumvent some of the random Skytrooper patrols the Eternal Empire had seen fit to throw in the way. Giving her list one last quick scan before passing it off, Miranza stepped onto the bridge, expecting to have to search for Theron under the bank of navigation equipment. Instead she found him slumped in the captain’s chair, staring out the viewscreen at the stars around them.

“Everything all right?” Miranza asked, although she suspected she wasn’t going to like his answer.

Theron used the toe of one boot to spin the chair around until he was facing her, and before he even opened his mouth her suspicions were confirmed. The last time she had seen him, back when he’d first started his work on the navicomputer, Theron had looked fine. His new implants, recently acquired on Corellia thanks to the assistance of one of the younger sisters of Miranza’s former massage therapist, had been working perfectly, he’d stopped having nightmares every night (restraints and being drugged ranked fairly highly on Theron’s list of triggers), and he’d been excited about the work he was doing on the navicomputer. Now, however, he was pale and listless, his nose was red, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.

“So, yeah, funny thing,” he said, in a voice that sounded as though he’d been gargling transparisteel shards, “Apparently whatever Vector’s got isn’t limited to just Killiks and Joiners, and hey, even funnier thing? Looks like I’ve got it, too.”

“Stars, Theron,” Miranza sighed, placing her hand on his forehead. He leaned into her touch, no doubt greatly appreciating her cool skin against his own – which was, of course, burning. Even though she already knew the answer Miranza fished around in her pocket for her thermometer and jammed it in his mouth when he opened it to make another snarky comment. “I’m not laughing.”

He tried speaking anyway but none of it made any sense with the thermometer in his mouth. Once it beeped he took it out and, not even glancing at the display, repeated himself, “So I guess this means Vector’s cold is zoo-oh-not – uh, zee-no-not – ahh, transmittable from one alien species to another, huh?”

“Xenonotic,” Miranza corrected automatically, taking the thermometer from him and reading the display. _39 °. Bloody fucking hell._ Theron, unlike Vector, was fully human, and did not run hot. “How long have you been feverish, Theron?”

“I have a fever?”

Miranza sighed again and, shoving the thermometer back into the pocket of her cardigan, grabbed Theron and pulled him up out of his seat. “Come on, Theron. Let’s put you to bed.”

At first Miranza expected a snarky, vaguely suggestive response from him, and the faint smirk on Theron’s face implied that one was well on the way – but then he stood and the smirk immediately vanished as he swayed a bit and had to grab onto the back of his seat to keep from falling. His face, already unnaturally pale, seemed to go whiter and for a moment Miranza was afraid he was about to faint. Theron managed to remain upright, however, although he kept a white-knuckled grip on his chair.

Miranza looped an arm around Theron’s back, guiding him off the bridge and down the corridor towards the crew quarters and his own private bunk. His cabin was right beside Vector’s, which at least meant Miranza wouldn’t need to go far to keep an eye on them both. Not that the _Mercurial_ was that big of a spaceship, but she felt better knowing both men were close at hand. Whether it was Theron’s fevered body pressed close to hers or the combination of exertion and her heavier clothing, Miranza felt unpleasantly warm and made a mental note to check the ship’s thermostat to ensure it was set to a temperature both Vector and Theron would be comfortable with. She could always put on – or take off – more clothing if necessary, but she needed to get their fevers down and a too-warm ship wouldn’t help with that in the least.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” she told Theron as she helped him strip off his sweat-soaked clothing and change into clean, dry sleepwear. Her voice was filled with both affection and worry, and Theron gave her a sweet, helpless smile that immediately reminded her of the one Vector had tossed her way not that long ago. “You should have told me you were getting sick.”

“Didn’t think I was sick,” Theron replied with a half-shrug, sinking down wearily onto his bed and grabbing a handful of tissues just in time to begin sneezing into them. Once the sneezing subsided he gave Miranza an apologetic grimace. “Just figured I was tired.”

“And the sneezing?”

“Allergies.” Another half-shrug, followed by another round of sneezing. “The underside of that console is dusty as hell. Besides,” he added, giving his nose a wipe with the tissue, “Vector said it was a Killik thing. Shouldn’t I – we – be immune?”

“I gather the Killiks were mistaken about that.” Miranza took the soiled tissues from him and jammed them in one of her other pockets to toss in the bin, then motioned for him to lay down. “Wait here and try not to drift off just yet. I’ll bring you some medicine and I want to get my stethoscope to check your lungs.”

“It’s not –” A sudden burst of coughing cut Theron off mid-sentence, lasting long enough to leave him breathless and red-faced, one arm wrapped around his abdomen as though trying to keep himself from coughing his lungs out. He grimaced again. “Okay, maybe it is. _Damn._ ”

“Sit tight, love. I’ll be right back.”

The pristine and neatly reorganized medbay did little to calm Miranza’s rapidly fraying nerves, especially when she retrieved the last of the antipyretic medication from the cabinet. _Damn_. With both men sick and feverish this wasn’t going to be enough, and now she couldn’t send Theron down to Asylum to pick up more – nor could she make the trip herself, since that would require her to leave the two of them unattended for far too long. Besides that, she didn’t know how the infection was spread, and since it apparently _was_ xenonotic she couldn’t take the risk of spreading it further. It was likely only a matter of time before she caught it, too – unless Theron was only susceptible because of his new-found predisposition towards infections – and as much as she might loathe Emperor Arcann and the Eternal Empire, she didn’t fancy making herself a plague-bearer on Zakuul. There were, so far as Miranza knew, no Killiks or Joiners on Zakuul, which meant the populace likely had no immunities from this infection as they’d had no exposure whatsoever.

Forcibly shoving one problem she couldn’t deal with to the back of her mind in favour of one she _could_ , Miranza collected Theron’s meds and an assortment of odds and ends that she thought she might require, then made her way back to his bunk. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his head dropped down into his hands. He looked up when she entered, his hazel eyes fever-bright.

“Here,” she said, unceremoniously thrusting a handful of pills and a glass of water in his direction. “Take these and drink all of that, then get into bed.”

Theron obeyed without comment, his meekness speaking far more about how miserable he was feeling than words could ever convey. Once he had himself settled in the bed Miranza set about applying cooling gel-packs to his head and torso, and then placed a damp, cool cloth over his eyes. Theron thus situated, Miranza put her stethoscope to his chest, and allowed herself a brief moment of relief that at least his lungs didn’t sound too bad. A bit wet and chesty, and she’d certainly continue monitoring him, but she’d heard worse. From him, in point of fact.

“All right, darling,” she said, pushing up off the bed and bending down to plant a light kiss on his forehead, just above the damp cloth, “Try and rest. I’ll check in on you in a little bit.”

“M’kay,” Theron murmured drowsily, shifting around carefully to make himself more comfortable without dislodging any of the gel-packs.

Miranza quickly popped in to Vector’s cabin to check on him again and was pleased to see him still sleeping, although he’d kicked off the sheets and managed to knock one of the gel-packs onto the floor. She put the gel-pack – still reasonably cool – back in place but left the sheets off for the time being, then headed out back to the bridge where she could make some holocalls while sitting comfortably. Between the running around and the worrying she was starting to feel a bit knackered, and she knew with both Vector and Theron sick she wasn’t going to get many opportunities for rest.

First things first. The signal to Alderaan wasn’t terribly strong, but Miranza recognized the heavy-boned human woman who appeared in the blurry, blue-tinged hologram as Healer, the Joiner doctor of the House Cortess branch of the Oroboro Nest. Miranza didn’t know Healer particularly well, but both Vector and Theron had spent more time in her company and had made use of her talents, and she knew they both trusted the doctor’s skills. Besides that, Healer was the one best-suited to answering Miranza’s questions about the infection, as well as the one who most needed to know that the illness was contagious to more than just Killiks and Joiners. Unsurprisingly the doctor looked tired; no doubt she was being run ragged dealing with all the sick members of House Cortess.

The conversation with Healer took longer than Miranza had planned, but she needed to get every piece of information on the Killik infection as she could and she had to keep stopping Healer to give herself time to write everything down. Normally Miranza was good at keeping track of information, but she was tired and overwhelmed, and she wanted to be sure she had everything correct. Armed with a list of medications – none of which she had on hand – and treatment options – most of which involved kolto tanks, which she _did_ have but it was currently empty, kolto being far too expensive to replace – Miranza moved on to her next holocall.

It took a few tries before Lana Beniko finally picked up, and when she did Miranza belatedly remembered that it was roughly two in the morning where the Sith lord was, and no doubt she had been sleeping before Miranza woke her up. Consummate professional that she was, however, Lana quickly smoothed over Miranza’s apologies, giving her former agent a small, tired-looking smile.

“You look a bit peaked, Cipher,” Lana said, her voice sounding tinny through the holoterminal. Although Miranza was no longer one of Lana’s agents – and, indeed, Lana was no longer the Minister of Sith Intelligence – old habits died hard, and Lana still had a tendency to refer to Miranza as either ‘cipher’ or ‘agent’ rather than by her name. It had turned into something of a nickname.

“Do I?” Miranza returned the tired smile with one of her own, tugging her cardigan a bit closer. The bridge was somewhat chilly, although she realized in her haste to see to Vector and Theron she had forgotten to check on the ship’s thermostat to make sure it was at a temperature comfortable for both of them. She added that to her ever-growing mental list. “I’ve been busy these past few hours. No rest for the wicked, as they say.”

Lana listened intently as Miranza explained the illness that had befallen the two men, and to Miranza’s relief the Sith agreed with Miranza’s reasons for not going down to Asylum herself to retrieve the medicines she needed. She took down Miranza’s list, stopping her a few times to be sure of spelling; there were a number of similar-sounding medications, and it wouldn’t do any good to send over an anticoagulant when Theron and Vector were in need of an antipyretic. By the time Miranza was done outlining all of her needs her throat was sore from all the talking she’d done and she was feeling even more exhausted, but Lana’s repeated assurances that she would arrange for the supplies to be delivered went a long way towards making Miranza feel better.

“And you?” Lana asked, once Miranza had wrapped up the important parts of the conversation. When Miranza simply blinked at her in confusion the Sith clarified, “How are you feeling, Cipher?”

“Oh. Fine.” Sensing that Lana wasn’t satisfied with that simplistic answer, Miranza continued, “Tired, of course. And worried, obviously. But otherwise, fine.” She was beginning to get a headache, but that didn’t seem worth mentioning to Lana, not when the Sith was already going into her worried den mother routine. “I’ll be sure to catch forty winks after I’ve checked on the boys again.”

“See that you do,” Lana replied, sounding unconvinced. “I’ll comm you when the supplies are on the way, and in the meantime … Be well to yourself, Miranza.”

“Thank you, Lana.” Miranza ran a hand over the bridge of her nose, massaging at the ache building there. “I’ll figure out a way to get the credits to you – ”

“Nonsense,” Lana cut her off, waving a hand dismissively. “We’re a team, Cipher. An alliance. We take care of our own.”

“Thank you, Lana,” Miranza said again, feeling a small lump rising in the back of her throat. Being tired always had the undesirable effect of making her more emotional, and she swiftly quashed the urge to cry at Lana’s – not entirely unexpected – show of support. They were a team, even if at the moment Miranza was feeling somewhat alone and untethered.

“Go,” Lana urged her. “See to the boys, and then get some rest.” She waved Miranza off again and disengaged the call before Miranza could offer further thanks.

Wiping at her eyes, Miranza pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the brief moment of vertigo she experienced as she stood. Setting the ship’s droid, Toovee, to pilot them to a nearby uninhabited moon where they could sit and wait for Lana’s delivery – and briefly considering the idea of having Toovee also monitor Vector and Theron so that she could catch a nap – Miranza returned to the medbay to collect more supplies prior to checking up on the two sick men.

Vector was awake and coughing when she slipped into his cabin. He still felt warm to her, but that could have been as much from the exertion as from his fever. He wasn’t yet due for more painkillers – those, at least, they had plenty of – so she used more gel-packs to try and ease the aches in his muscles. Miranza would have applied some liniment, but the only kinds they had all had some kind of heating component to them, since that was what both she and Theron preferred for dealing with pulled muscles, and she didn’t want to risk aggravating Vector’s fever.

Vector shared Miranza’s surprise and consternation over the discovery that Theron had managed to come down with the illness, and expressed his concerns about Miranza’s health, that she was going to run herself ragged trying to care for both of them.

“We don’t want to be a bother, beloved,” he told her, his voice hoarse from coughing. Miranza brushed some of his jet-black hair – gone stringy and greasy from too many days without showering – back from his face, and he smiled wearily up at her, blinking sleepy all-black eyes. “It is just a cold; it will pass. See to Theron, and then go rest yourself. We can read the exhaustion in your aura.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’m just worried about the two of you.”

She redistributed some of the gel-packs to make him more comfortable, then made a quick trip into the galley to fetch him some more chamomile-mint tea. By the time the tea was ready Vector had already fallen back to sleep, so she left it on the recessed shelf over his bunk and went to check on Theron.

As with Vector Miranza found Theron awake when she entered his cabin, but instead of hunched over and coughing the way Vector had been, he was simply sitting up, staring off into space. She gave him a tired smile but he seemed to stare through her, completely zoned out, not even registering her presence.

“Theron? Love?” A cold chill rippled down Miranza’s spine as Theron continued to ignore her. Then, before she could call to him again, his eyes shifted off to one side and he slumped back down to the mattress, narrowly missing colliding headfirst into the wall. She was two steps into his cabin when the spasms started: first in his face, little twitches that pulled his lips to the side and caused him to blink rapidly, then it spread, down his arms, out to the tips of his fingers and down to his legs, even his bare toes curling and uncurling as convulsions wracked his entire body.

Miranza’s eyes darted to the chronometer on the shelf over Theron’s bed as she made a quick mental note of the time. She had no idea how long he’d been like this, but she knew timing was important. She’d seen seizures before – stars, she’d even been responsible for a few, in her time with Imperial Intelligence – but certainly never with someone she loved, and while she knew, roughly, what she was supposed to do she was terrified at having to do it.

Easing Theron’s convulsing body onto his side and cradling his head in her lap, she threw one arm over him to keep him from tumbling onto the floor and began speaking to him in low, soothing tones. She had no way of knowing whether or not he could hear her – his eyes were still wide open, but his gaze was fixed and she had the sense that he wasn’t at all aware of his surroundings – but forcing herself to sound calm for his sake had the added benefit of keeping her focused, instead of sending her off into a panic like she wanted to do.

A harsh, acrid odour filled the room and Miranza repressed her instinctive distaste at the realization that Theron had wet himself. _It happens,_ she reminded herself, running a gentle hand over Theron’s arm and pretending not to notice the way his muscles bunched and jerked under her touch. Raising her voice for just a moment, she called down the hall to Toovee, knowing that while she _could_ carry Theron out of his cabin and into the medbay or the captain’s cabin if she had to, it would be far easier to have the droid do the heavy lifting – and once Theron was taken care of, Toovee could deal with the mess in his cabin.

Miranza continued to stroke and pet Theron, ignoring the strain on her other arm as she had to fight to keep him on the bed. He was sweaty and far too hot against her, and she knew she was going to have the memory of his handsome face contorted into rictus as the key feature in her nightmares for weeks to come once this was all over. The worst part, though, were his eyes: he stared, unseeing, at the ceiling of the cabin, his eyes occasionally jerking along with the rest of him. On the one hand, she dearly hoped he _wasn't_ aware of what was happening to him, because no doubt he would be embarrassed and in pain. On the other, though, the sightless staring was terrifying, and she wanted him to look at her and acknowledge her presence.

Then, as suddenly as it started, Theron’s seizure stopped and he sagged limply against her, panting and gasping. Miranza glanced at the chronometer – nine minutes – and murmured comforting nonsense into his ear, running her fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. He blinked up at her in obvious confusion, his eyes slowly sweeping the room as though he was trying to sort out where he was and how he’d come to be there. When he finally looked up at her he gave her the sweetest, most peaceful smile she’d ever seen on his face, and his eyelids fluttered shut.

The urge to cry was almost overwhelming, but Miranza managed to force it down again and instead instructed Toovee to first help her undress Theron – she wanted him out of his sweat- and urine-soaked sleepwear – and then carry him into the medbay. The droid hastened to comply, letting out a litany of worried comments as it worked; when it finally lifted Theron up into its arms and headed for the medbay, Miranza followed close behind.

Miranza paused only briefly to stick her head into Vector’s cabin, checking to make sure he hadn’t been disturbed by all the commotion. Thankfully he was still asleep, looking as though he hadn’t moved a millimetre since she had last seen him. Giving thanks for small mercies Miranza continued on to the medbay, and to Theron.

The next … however long it took – no longer keeping an eye on the chronometer to time Theron’s seizure, Miranza completely lost track of everything but focusing on what she was doing – was filled with Miranza doing her damnedest to make Theron more comfortable and get his fever down. With the aid of Toovee she was able to give him a quick sponge bath that had the combined benefits of cleaning him up and cooling him down, and once he was settled in clean, dry pajama bottoms on top of fresh, clean sheets, she bundled him with gel-packs and set the bed rails in place to keep him from toppling out of bed in the event of another seizure. She then connected him to the medical equipment to monitor his vitals, and sent Toovee to go back to Theron’s cabin to tidy everything up. Having only barely come to following his seizure, Theron was sleeping quietly by the time Miranza was done, and she slipped out of the medbay on silent feet.

The crisis having – momentarily – passed, Miranza leaned against the wall outside the medbay and closed her eyes, drawing in a few deep breaths to try and calm herself. Instead of feeling calmer, however, Miranza mostly just felt exhausted, and she let herself slowly sink to the ground, drawing her knees in close to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. The urge to cry had gone, or perhaps she simply didn’t have the energy for it. She was tired and sore and at some point in the disaster she had misplaced her cardigan and her clothes were wet and she felt an uncomfortable mixture of both too hot and too cold. She felt as though she could sleep for a month. She felt as though she might never sleep again.

The insistent chirping of her holocomm broke Miranza out of her reverie, and with one hand on the wall she pulled herself upright, staggering back to the bridge. It was Lana, calling with the best news Miranza had heard all day: Barrazhat and Rekka were en route with the medical supplies she had requested and would be arriving within the next two hours. Lana expressed concern over Miranza’s dishevelled appearance, and Miranza fought the urge to tell the Sith everything that had happened since the last time they’d spoken and instead simply thanked her for the message and ended the call.

Realizing she couldn’t remember when she had last had anything to eat or drink – not that she was feeling particularly hungry or thirsty – Miranza made her way to the galley in search of something quick and simple to make. Her discarded cardigan was draped over the back of one of the chairs; she had no memory of leaving it there, but given the recent flurry of activity it could have happened at any time in the last several hours. She wasn’t feeling all that cold – if anything, she was a little warm, no doubt from all the running around she’d been doing – but she picked up the cardigan anyway, intending to return it to her own cabin for safekeeping. A quick check of the pockets revealed her thermometer, and, acting more out of personal curiosity than anything else, she activated it and stuck it under her tongue. The thermometer chirruped at her and she took it out of her mouth, glancing down casually while still heading towards her cabin.

_39.5° Celsius._

“Fan- _fucking_ -tastic,” Miranza muttered under her breath, resisting the rather intense desire to fling the thermometer as hard as she could down the hallway. Instead, she turned on her heel and headed towards the refresher. They were out of fever medication and she was the only one even remotely functional – she wasn’t about to leave Vector and Theron’s care in Toovee’s incredibly dubiously qualified hands – and she had to get her fever down.

Miranza started up the water in the ‘fresher, adjusting it to the coolest temperature she thought she could tolerate, then stripped out of her clothing. Normally she would make more of an effort to be tidy, but she had no intention of putting her sweaty, faintly urine-scented clothes back on, and instead left them in a messy pile on the floor before stepping into the shower stall.

The cold water momentarily took her breath away. She was normally a fan of hot showers – scalding showers, the kind that would leave her skin reddened and ease out every kink in her body – so the cold was definitely not welcome, even if it did make her feel a bit better. As she stood in the shower, letting the cool water pelt down over her, she allowed herself to take stock of her own condition, which she’d been ignoring pretty much from the moment she realized Theron was sick. And now that she was paying attention, her body was telling her – very loudly and very insistently – that she was most definitely _not well._

She could see how Theron had initially misdiagnosed himself. It was easy to write her headache off as a reaction to stress. The exhaustion, well, of course she’d be exhausted; she’d be going nonstop for how long now? The temperature fluctuations? Just her going from being overworked and overdressed to sitting still on a spaceship with the thermostat set low to save money on fuel. Muscle aches? Yes, of course – she’d been wrangling Theron’s heavy body, and honestly, these days, when _didn’t_ she feel just a little bit sore and achy? Even the runny nose and sore, scratchy throat could be explained by how upset she was. Taken all together, however, it painted a picture not unlike the symptoms Vector had described when he first came down with the Killik infection.

Ultimately, though, Miranza was certain it was just a cold, and while she generally wasn’t sick very often, she’d had plenty of colds throughout her more than thirty years of life. Theron was just being hit hard because his immune system struggled to fight off head or chest infections; he’d been this way ever since the three of them had escaped that thrice-be-damned swamp planet they’d crashed on. They would be fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Lost in thought, Miranza began moving through her normal bathing routine, deciding that a good, proper cleansing would go a long way towards making her feel better. The cold water doing nothing for her aching muscles, however, she turned the faucets over to hot, and sighed in contentment as near-scalding water began pelting her from overhead. The ‘fresher had excellent water pressure, and it felt amazing on her sore, aching body.

Miranza was just starting to rinse the conditioner out of her hair when the combination of fever and too-hot water hit her. For a brief moment she thought the blurriness of her vision was the result of the steam from the shower, but then the stall around her seemed to spin, rather alarmingly, and she grabbed at the shelf to keep herself from falling over. Toiletries – shampoos, conditioners, the bottles of body wash and shaving gel – crashed to the floor of the stall, followed by the shelf, pulled loose from its mounting brackets by Miranza’s weight. She felt a brief flash of dismay over the mess, and then –

Nothing.

Lights out.

O o O o O

When Miranza opened her eyes again she had a throbbing headache and her mouth tasted like the back end of a bantha. And _oh,_ everything hurt … It hurt to breathe, hurt to lie still, hurt even more to move. She felt as though she’d been dropped from the tallest point of the Citadel on Dromund Kaas, hitting every possible ledge on the long way down.

At first all she could do was stare dead ahead; it hurt too much to try and move her head to look in another direction. She was in a med centre of some sort – while she couldn't distinguish this particular one from all the others she’d been in, they all had a certain sameness to them and she’d been in enough over the years to recognize the familiar equipment and setup. She was situated on a fairly standard hospital bed, crisp white sheets tucked up around her waist, and her right arm had a number of feeds and wires attached to it, including an IV drip which she guessed contained saline or antibiotics. Her vision was too blurry and her head too sore for her to make out any of the displays on the equipment, but since none of the alarms were going off she chose to assume that meant she wasn’t at immediate risk of dying.

Finally working up the energy to turn her head, Miranza looked to her right to see Theron asleep in a hospital bed much like her own. He was curled up on his side, arms wrapped around a pillow, and she noticed he was hooked up to some of the same kind of equipment as her. His colour looked good – still pale, but better – and he appeared to be simply sleeping, which immediately put her at ease.

Turning to her left, Miranza expected to see Vector, but instead was surprised by the sight of Barrazhat sitting sprawled in one of the traditionally-painful chairs provided to visitors of hospital rooms, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arm hooked over the back of the chair as he tried to make himself more comfortable. He was reading over something on a datapad, but when he sensed Miranza’s eyes on him he looked up and – although it was difficult to tell on account of the mask he wore over the lower half of his face, covering his nose and mouth – she thought he smiled at her.

It was strange to see the bounty hunter out of his armour, and Miranza opened her mouth to comment on it but instead what she croaked out was, “Where am I?”

Barrazhat stood and stretched, causing some of his joints to crack. “Med centre on board the _Balac,_ still in Wild Space.” His voice, modulated by the mask, came out sounding even deeper than usual and had a strange mechanical cadence to it.

“ _Balac_?” Miranza repeated. The way Barrazhat said it, the slight inflection he used, suggested it was a Mandalorian word, but she wasn’t familiar with it. Given Barrazhat and Rekka’s connections, however, it stood to reason she was on a Mando ship of some sort, which, while fraught with its own concerns, was marginally better for both her and Theron than being on a Republic, Imperial or – worst of all – Zakuulan ship.

“Don’t worry about it,” Barrazhat assured her, no doubt reading her concern on her face. She was too exhausted to keep her facial expressions under control. “You’re safe here. You’re under my protection – mine and Rekka’s – and besides, most of the Mandos here owe you for Ilum.”

Ah. Miranza didn’t voice it out loud, but Barrazhat’s explanation did make sense to her. He, along with his wife and apparently the other Mandalorians on board the _Balac_ , had been one of the Mandos who had signed on with Darth Malgus during his bid for the Imperial throne. Deciding what to do with the Mandalorians after Malgus’s defeat had somehow fallen to Miranza – who, along with Vector, Kaliyo and Doctor Lokin, had been a part of the strike force sent to deal with the would-be Emperor. Miranza had sympathized with Malgus’s cause, if not his actions: an empire that welcomed, rather than shunned aliens – of course she sympathized, she, who was married to a man who was no longer seen as wholly human. And it made sense to her that Barrazhat, a Pureblood Sith whose Force sensitivity guaranteed him a place on Korriban even as his weakness with the Force guaranteed he would die at the hands of his fellow acolytes, and who had chosen instead to flee that life and become a bounty hunter where his Force sensitivity was a minor advantage rather than a death sentence – yes, it made sense to her that Barrazhat would have sided with Malgus. Miranza had made the choice to let the Mandalorians go, deciding it was better to keep them as allies than to add more enemies to the Empire’s ever-growing list. That was how she had met Barrazhat and his Mandalorian born-and-bred wife, and while the two of them had never once mentioned it to Miranza, she had always had the sense that they were grateful to her for sparing them.

It was funny. Kaliyo and Lokin had both cautioned her against letting the Mandos go free – that she was laying down a weapon another might freely pick up. She wondered what either of them would say to discover that her clemency may have saved her life.

“How …?” she asked, not having the energy for more than the one word.

Barrazhat seemed to understand her, however, and he grinned, the cross-shaped scar stretching across his red-skinned face and the gold jewelry glinting off his lips, eyebrows and nose.

“You didn’t answer your comm and your damned droid wouldn’t let us onto the ship without your say-so,” he said, shrugging one massive shoulder. “So Rekka and I forced our way on board. She’s already got someone patching your ship up for you – sorry about the airlock. You scared the _osik_ out of us, though, girl. Thought we were walking onto a ship full of corpses. Beniko said the lads were sick, she didn’t mention anything about you. If that blasted droid hadn’t led Rekka to the ‘fresher, I’m not sure how long it would’ve taken us to find you.”

“Vector?” While Miranza was worried about her husband, she wasn’t yet ready to panic. She assumed Barrazhat would have said something – would have led with it – if something had happened to Vector.

“Napping in our cabin,” Barrazhat assured her, confirming her suspicions. “Two days in the med centre and the doctors pronounced him fit to leave, so long as he promises to take it easy. That one” – he jerked his head in Theron’s direction – “should be released in a day or two. You, on the other hand, my girl – you’re stuck here for the foreseeable future. Between cracking your head in the ‘fresher and getting the worst of whatever crazy space-bug plague the three of you picked up, you’re not going anywhere until the doctors are good and ready to let you go. Doctor only just took you off the ventilator this morning.”

_Oh._ Well, that explained both her headache – which, now that she noticed it, did seem to be fixed in one specific spot – and why her throat felt as though someone had stuffed it full of glass. She didn’t remember hitting her head in the shower, although she dimly recalled the dizziness that had overcome her. And a ventilator! Well, that was just _lovely._ The cherry on top of a shit-sundae of a day. (Or was it week? How long _had_ she been unconscious for? After some consideration, Miranza decided she didn't need to know just yet.)

Scowling at her, Barrazhat leaned forward, narrowing his yellow-orange eyes.

“What in the name of the Force were you thinking, girl?” he demanded, poking his finger at her but not – quite – jabbing her with it. “You could’ve killed yourself!”

“I was thinking,” Miranza rasped out, irritation momentarily overcoming exhaustion, “that we were out of fever meds, Vector was down for the count, Theron was in the medbay after having a seizure, and I was the only one still up and functioning, so I had to keep going. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Yes, well, you weren’t, though, were you?” Barrazhat asked, pulling his hand away from her face. “Up and functioning, I mean. Damn near died, you wee idiot. We need you, you get that, right? This little enterprise Beniko’s got going, it needs you, and your two idiot husbands, to make it all work. She might have her eyes set on the Outlander, but one Jedi martyr’s not going to make a lick of difference if we don’t have the three of you to help us track him down.”

Blinking as though momentarily startled by his own outburst, Barrazhat patted awkwardly at the blanket over Miranza’s knee and let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Just … take better care of yourselves, yes?” he said finally, not meeting her eyes. “We … ah … this alliance, it needs you.”

And with that said, Barrazhat turned and stalked out of the room, leaving a flabbergasted Miranza in his wake. She settled back in against the wealth of pillows behind her, deciding that in her present condition she didn’t really feel up to sorting out Barrazhat’s rather implausible statements. That was probably the most he’d ever said to her in the six years they’d known each other, and she was at a loss for words.

“He’s not wrong, you know,” Theron said sleepily from across the room. She turned to see him gazing at her from his own stack of pillows, a lopsided grin on his – still too-pale, but definitely much improved – face. “You _do_ need to take better care of yourself.”

“Theron, love,” Miranza murmured, returning the smile wearily, “Would you rather be the pot, or the kettle?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed. I highly recommend checking out the Richard Cheese cover, which (I find) actually rather improves on it (and which you might recognize from the 2004 remake of _Dawn of the Dead_ ).
> 
> Somewhere along the way Barrazhat's voice has become that of Steve Blum, and I'm strangely comfortable with that.
> 
> As an aside, both Theron's seizure and Miranza's fainting spell come from two real-life experiences, and occurred under fairly similar (minus, y'know, Killik viruses and spaceships) circumstances. Write what you know, eh?


	5. Sleep to Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short bit of fluff and angst, courtesy of Vector.

**The Mercurial, _Wild Space, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_**

With the darkening visage of a dying planet still standing behind his eyes and a choked-off scream of anguish on his lips, Vector came awake with a start. He didn’t bolt upright or cry out – indeed, aside from the faintest of twitches and a horrified gasp, Vector’s awakening was rather peaceful, at least within the standards of his company. Beside him Theron murmured sleepily, sensing Vector’s disturbance even if it wasn’t quite enough to wake him up as well, and Vector ran a hand down the other man’s back in reassurance. Theron settled again, burying his face in his pillow with a contented sigh.

Ziost, again. Three years on, and it was still almost always Ziost that haunted Vector’s dreams – and, if he was being honest with himself, had begun to impact his waking days as well. Waking up with Theron beside him was helpful; Theron, more often than not, was the focus of his nightmares, and the reassurance that the other man was still alive went a long way towards easing Vector’s mind. It was difficult for Vector to escape the horror of the weeks after Ziost when he and Miranza didn’t know whether Theron was alive or dead and when, in the wake of then-Chancellor Saresh’s desire to kick the Empire when it was down, it was impossible to send or receive word of survival.

Rubbing his hand down Theron’s back again, Vector knew full well that it wasn’t just the fear of losing him that plagued his dreams. He and Miranza had watched as Ziost – and every form of life on the planet’s surface – had died. He understood, from having discussed the subject with Miranza, that the sight of the planet’s destruction was horrible even to mundane eyes: the sweeping blackness that had spread across the planet, the way the lights in the orbital station had flickered, the terrified cries that had echoed – before fading to eerie static – over the station’s comms. Even without taking into account the fact that both Vector and Miranza had every reason to believe that Theron was still down on the surface along with the surviving Sixth Line Jedi and Master Caedan Savarr, the catastrophic loss of life was devastating. Miranza, having been in the midst of assisting Lana Beniko with the evacuation details, had no doubt begun calculating the odds in her mind, doing the math of how many people could fit in each shuttle, how many shuttles were en route and therefore, how many people had been left behind. They’d done their best to get as many people as possible off of Ziost, but even with their best … the math was not kind.

For Vector – whose eyes could never be said to be mundane – there were no words to express what he had witnessed. He, who had such facility with language, who could render even the most banal experience into poetry, would never be able to explain to anyone who was not a Killik or a Joiner what it was he perceived when Ziost died. Even from the great distance of the orbital station his enhanced vision could almost account for every dying spark, every flickering loss. He’d glanced away so briefly – just long enough to take in Lana’s horrified reaction – before forcing himself to bear witness to the destruction. As much as it pained him, Vector had felt – not that he was capable of thinking clearly in that moment – that _someone_ should serve as observer, that _someone_ should be able to account for the last seconds of Ziost and be able to carry that memory on in remembrance of the dead.

Since the destruction of Ziost, Vector had often wondered if what he had witnessed bore any resemblance to what Lana had seen through the Force. He was not Force sensitive, but his Killik-enhanced senses enabled him to perceive the world in a way few others could, and there was an academic curiosity that made him want to compare his way of experiencing the world with what a Force-sensitive might know and understand. It wasn’t something he could discuss with Lana, however: she never spoke of Ziost.

Forcibly pushing the memories down, Vector allowed himself to be soothed by the simple act of running his hand over Theron’s smooth, slightly sweat-dampened back, comforted by the familiar contact. He let his gaze drift over first Theron, and then Miranza, who slept curled up on Theron’s other side. (Such a strange thing: before Theron, neither Vector nor Miranza could have been said to be a cuddler. And yet ... more often than not when they shared a bed they wound up pressed tight against one another, bodies entwined. Part of it, Vector knew, was because there was seldom enough room in a bed for three adults to share without being _somewhat_ close. But the other part - the part that brought a faint smile to Vector's lips, even in his anxious state - was how much it had become a way for him and Miranza to reassure Theron of his importance in their lives.) Theron’s aura, having dimmed somewhat during his period of convalescence, was beginning to return to its normal brilliant blues and greens, the vibrancy of it almost enough to take Vector’s breath away. Miranza’s aura was still muted, the normal indigos and purples still shot through with the thin veins of grey and black that marked the illness that plagued her. Another source of guilt and anxiety, that: Theron and Miranza had both nearly died, and it was Vector’s fault for exposing them to an infection to which they’d had no immunities. Worse, still, Miranza had proven allergic to the medication Healer had recommended as treatment, and had spent four days unconscious and on life support as a result. Even now, more than a week after she had been released from the medbay on board the _Balac,_ she was still struggling to recover. If Rekka hadn’t found her … If Lana hadn’t sent the bounty hunters to deliver the supplies …

Vector swallowed heavily and focused on his breathing; on his breathing, and on that of Theron and Miranza. Theron’s breaths were slow and even in sleep, with not even the faintest hint of the horrible cough that had kept him up nights. Miranza’s breathing still sounded a bit hoarse to Vector, but she was sleeping and she wasn’t coughing, and he had to content himself with the knowledge that she _was_ getting better. No doubt she was more frustrated by her slow progress than he was worried by it.

There were times Vector wanted to wrap the pair of them up in cotton batting and keep them tucked away someplace safe, away from the violence and dangers of the galaxy. He couldn’t imagine either Theron or Miranza being content with such treatment, however, and although they knew and understood why he worried so much none of them could ignore the fact that they had jobs to do and important roles to fill within Lana’s burgeoning alliance. Vector had to make do with promising himself that once this was all over, once the Outlander was rescued and Emperor Arcann defeated, they could finally allow themselves a moment of rest.

He ignored the voice in the back of his head that whispered that, even with the Eternal Empire defeated, there would always be crises for them to deal with. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that the three of them were together, and with all that had changed in the galaxy in the wake of Emperor Valkorion’s death there was nothing that would pull them apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is "Sleep to Dream" by Fiona Apple.


	6. Message in Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look, plot! (Another short chapter, this time featuring Miranza.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for canonical torture

**_Tatooine, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

She was supposed to be resting. Between the heat and the lingering traces of illness the short jaunt from the Mos Ila spaceport to the dead drop and then on to the safe house had been exhausting, and Barrazhat had come perilously close to carrying her from the speeder all the way into the bedroom she shared with Theron and Vector. Worse, she’d come perilously close to _needing_ him to do so, and the resulting anger and frustration at that revelation made her immensely grateful that they’d elected to leave her behind while they went to scout out the Star Fortress over Tatooine. At least they hadn’t decided to leave someone behind to babysit her. Theron or Vector would have done it; stars, Rekka or Barrazhat would have done it, too, but Miranza was _quite_ finished with being coddled, thank you _very_ much.

It wasn’t that Miranza didn’t appreciate their heartfelt concern. She did, really. Truly. And she had needed it, as well: had needed Vector to help her in the shower, had needed Theron to comb out the tangles in her curly hair, had needed Rekka to walk her to the ‘fresher and back, had needed Barrazhat to fetch her food and drink when the galley felt like it might as well have been kilometres away rather than just a few steps. But oh, stars, how she hated needing their help. And while no one ever wanted to be sick or injured, Miranza hated the feelings of helplessness and uselessness more than the illness itself, and she just wanted to return to work as soon as possible. The others had all voiced their concerns about her joining them on Tatooine, but even being relegated to staying in the safe house was better than being left behind on her ship.

At least they’d been willing to leave her to her own devices, rather than one of them staying behind to play nursemaid. Granted, Barrazhat had threatened to tie her to the bed (and no doubt the way she’d paled at the suggestion had probably done nothing to reassure him that it was safe to leave her behind), but they’d left, and she was supposed to be resting.

The air conditioning, coupled with a considerable amount of fresh, clean water, had perked her up considerably, but more than that Miranza was kept awake by curiosity. Curiosity, and the package that had been left in their dead drop, which she now held in her hands as she sat on the edge of her bed.

The package was innocuous enough: a plain envelope addressed to her, the Aurebesh letters of her name printed out on a label-maker rather than handwritten. Inside was an older model datapad, the sort that could be found in thrift stores, pawn shops and junkyards across the galaxy for a handful of credits – the sort used by spies and criminals from one end of the known universe to the next. Miranza had already searched the envelope and datapad for traps, bugs or anything else that could prove to be a potential hazard, and both had come up clean. (Well, not _literally_ clean: the sand on Tatooine really _did_ get everywhere.)

Covering a cough with her hand – and looking around guiltily on the off-chance one of the team had heard her, but of course they were nowhere near by – Miranza lifted the datapad with her other hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, thumbed it on.

A message appeared on the screen, yellow-green letters flashing against a black background:

_I found this while scrolling through the SIS archives and immediately thought it would interest you. I’ve missed you. We had so much fun together, didn’t we? Take care. I’m thinking of you._

The message was unsigned. At first the mention of the Republic Strategic Information Service made her think the datapad had come from Jonas Balkar, but the sentence structure of the message was all wrong for him – he had a tendency to drop articles and pronouns: had Jonas been the author, it would have been “Found this while scrolling through SIS archives …” And really … what fun had she had with Jonas, anyway? She’d worked with him while trying to rescue Theron years ago, and that had been the extent of their interaction. It hadn’t been a fun time, not for anyone, and Jonas Balkar was not the sort of person to make light of what they’d gone through. Never mind the last two sentences, which sounded _nothing_ like the SIS agent she had known. It was simply that Jonas was the only person – outside of Theron himself – that Miranza really knew in the SIS. She couldn’t even remember the names of the two agents who had been working with him on Nar Shaddaa.

Perhaps it was a part of her training as a spy, but curiosity propelled Miranza further. She never _could_ let sleeping manka cats lie. When the message cleared, the black background faded away to be replaced by a rolling burst of static as a clip from a holovid began playing. At first she could see nothing more than a staticky blur, but then she heard a pained groan issue forth from an exceedingly familiar voice, and all of a sudden a memory arose unbidden in her mind. A memory from over four years ago of Lana speaking through the comm in Miranza’s ear, and the desperate, frantic panic she had felt at the time.

“ _There …,_ ” Lana’s voice murmured in Miranza’s mind, from years ago in an enemy encampment on Rishi, “ _A holorecord of Theron under interrogation._ ”

The staticky blur resolved itself into a close-framed shot of Theron from what Miranza recognized as his time spent as a captive of the Revanites. He was barely conscious, his right eye swollen shut, his lips cracked and bleeding. She couldn’t see how he was restrained or where, exactly, he was – the holorecorder was too close to him to show anything more than his head and upper torso – but she knew from his own accounting of events what had happened to him. She had been the one to put him back together when he’d been too stubborn and angry to seek proper medical treatment. He almost hadn't been willing to let her touch him; he'd thought she'd been in cahoots with Lana, that the Imperials he'd (foolishly, misguidedly) trusted had thrown him to the wolves in the name of expediency. She hadn't blamed him for his mistaken opinion of her - stars, her offer to patch him up had come as much from a need to prove that she _wasn't_ responsible for his capture as it had come from a strong desire to ease his pain.

She didn’t want to watch this, and yet Miranza found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the datapad screen.

Someone threw a bucket of cold water over him and Theron sputtered, coming awake with another series of miserable sounds, fixing a bleary one-eyed gaze on something or someone offscreen. Even with the low-quality resolution she could see the exhaustion and pain on his face, and her own memories of the condition he’d been in filled in the blanks left by the recording itself. She remembered every bruise, every cut, every burn. She remembered how his hands had shook, how he'd flinched away from even the gentlest of touches as she'd cleaned and bandaged his wounds. She remembered how hard he'd struggled to remain conscious, how unwilling he'd been to be completely helpless and insensate in her presence. She remembered how hard it had been not to cry for him, in front of him.

Rishi, Theron’s capture, the fight with Revan – those had been the early days of their relationship, when it had just been flirtation and ideal diversion. At no point had Miranza ever suspected it would all lead to … this. To _now._ Back then they’d known it couldn’t possibly last: a Republic SIS agent who was also the (unacknowledged and very much secret) son of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order (Miranza hadn’t even _known_ about Theron’s father, the Supreme Commander of the Republic military, at the time), an Imperial agent trained since childhood and brainwashed into complete devotion to the Empire, and a brilliant Imperial diplomat. Of _course_ it couldn’t last. Somehow, though … It had. It had lasted. _They_ had lasted, and now Theron was as much the centre of Miranza’s universe as Vector was.

She wanted to turn the datapad off, but her hands wouldn’t move. Her fingers were numb, shaking. Her eyes stared, transfixed, at the screen, watching Theron’s torture play out in all its grainy recorded glory. She’d known it had been recorded, of course – Lana had told her it was being recorded even as it was happening – but she hadn’t known anyone had kept the recordings. Had Theron himself sent them on to the SIS, dutiful agent that he had been? Had someone else found them and passed them on? (She thought she'd killed everyone in the Revanite compound. She'd been on a path of bloody vengeance, her and Vector both. She'd lost count of the bodies.) How many others had viewed the holorecorded details of Theron’s capture, torture and escape?

Who had sent this to her? Who could possibly think she would want to _see_ this?!? Bad enough to know it had happened, bad enough to have treated Theron's injuries, but this? _Stars ..._

Before Miranza could summon the strength to fling the datapad at the nearest wall the recording ended – abruptly, on the sights and sounds of a torture-probe settling in for the long-haul and Theron’s agonized scream – and a new image filled the screen.

This image was crisp and clear: a picture of a lovely green-skinned Nautolan woman staring directly into Miranza’s eyes, making a kissy face for the camera. The framing was odd, off-centre, and it took Miranza a moment to realize the woman was trying to include both herself and a piece of the background in the picture. Once she _did_ realize that, however, Miranza couldn't tear her eyes away. There, in the background over the Nautolan’s shoulder Miranza could see what looked like the upper level of the Promenade on Nar Shaddaa. And there, in the milling crowd, were her – Miranza – and Theron, frozen in conversation as they waited for two Twi’lek children to run past them.

_Amrielle._ Miranza recognized the Nautolan woman straight away, and that beautiful face filled her with abject terror – terror that was compounded a thousand-fold by the realization that Amrielle had been on Nar Shaddaa at the same time she and Theron had been heading to the clinic to have his implants fixed. She had been there, and she had _seen_ them, and _they hadn’t noticed a thing._

_I’m thinking of you._

The message, originally so bizarre and coming out of left-field as it did, made Miranza’s blood run cold.

Amrielle.

_I’m thinking of you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Message in Blood" by Pantera.
> 
> Not to be shamelessly self-promoting, but Amrielle appears in my fic _The Voices of Thieves and Robbers._
> 
> I blame a recent play-through of Shadow of Revan for this little plot bunny - hearing Lana mention that there was a recording of Theron under torture, and wondering how awful it would be for someone who loved him to see that recording.


	7. Carry On Wayward Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and his father have a chat.

**_Coronet City, Corellia, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

Corellia was never going to be high on Theron’s list of favourite places. His experiences on the planet fell heavily on the “incredibly awful and traumatizing” side of things, and whatever admiration he might have had for the Corellian people, their ingenuity and their perseverance was overshadowed by the weeks he’d spent there as a prisoner of the Star Cabal. Miranza still twitched whenever Corellia was mentioned, and even Vector, with his enthusiastic appreciation of all things cultural, would prefer to never hear or speak of the planet again.

It was what it was, though, and Theron’s visit to Coronet City killed two birds with one stone. His new cybernetics specialist – a sober Zabrak woman whose Twi’lek wife had been smuggled to freedom in Republic space thanks to Miranza and Vector – didn’t make house-calls, and Theron needed her to give his implants a check-up to ensure they weren’t in any way responsible for the seizure he’d suffered. With that appointment out of the way (and the relief he felt at knowing his implants were fine was almost enough to make him weak at the knees), Theron was on to his second appointment: breakfast with his father.

Theron’s relationship with Jace Malcom was complicated, to say the least. His relationship with both his parents was complicated. His mother, formerly the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, had given birth to him in secret; she hadn’t even told Jace she was pregnant, and she had given Theron into the care of her old mentor, Master Ngani Zho. Theron knew her reasons and told himself, on a semi-regular basis, that he was okay with her decision, but it still angered him that she hadn’t told Jace about him. Theron didn’t meet his father until he was twenty-six (he hadn’t met Satele Shan, his mother, until he was twenty-three and at the time he’d given her no indication that he knew who she was). He had the impression Jace wanted more of a relationship – more of a traditional father/son relationship – with Theron, but neither of them had any clue what that was even supposed to mean, much less how to go about forging one. Recent years and recent events had begun to make it unlikely that their relationship was ever going to extend beyond occasional colleagues. Aside from shared genetics Theron didn’t think they had anything in common.

The restaurant was fairly new, one of the latest efforts by the Corellian people to begin putting their planet back together after the invasion of the Sith Empire and the subsequent liberation by the Republic. Progress had slowed following the war with Zakuul, but Corellians were nothing if not determined, and their resolve to put the destruction and war behind them was truly admirable. While the view from the breakfast patio was hardly anything to write home about – Theron was able to take in the ruins of a skyscraper _and_ the cratered remains of one of the major roadways from where he sat – the restaurant itself was fairly busy and the menu he’d been studying for the better part of ten minutes in order to avoid talking to his father held a number of items he was interested in trying out. Especially if Jace was paying.

Seated across from his father at the narrow table, Theron took a quick moment to look Jace over surreptitiously, taking in the subtle changes that marked the older man’s scarred face. While it sometimes felt like Jace Malcom was a man who thrived on war and conquest it was clear to Theron that the past few years had not been kind. There were more strands of grey in his close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and the lines around his eyes and mouth appeared to have come more from frowning and grief than from laughter. The horrific scarring that covered the bulk of his face – but was more prominent on the right – seemed deeper and more pronounced, and while he still sat ramrod straight and carried himself like the soldier he was, Theron could see the weariness in his body. It might have seemed as though fighting a war on multiple fronts had rejuvenated him, but Theron could tell that it was taking its toll.

Theron took a sip of his caf, a nutty espresso blend that he felt could have benefited from a healthy helping of good old-fashioned Corellian whiskey. No doubt it should have concerned him that it wasn’t even noon yet and he was yearning for a drink, but visits with his father tended to bring that out in him. Never mind the shock he’d gotten when he met Jace’s aide, an older blonde woman he hadn’t seen in years.

The first and last time he’d seen Lieutenant Elara Dorne, she’d been a part of a team of soldiers responsible for rescuing him from Imperial captors. Only his “captors” had been Vector and some Killiks on Alderaan, and in reality Theron had had his father arrange the trade in order to get Miranza out of Republic custody. Theron had passed himself off as an Imperial prisoner of war and he’d been far too concerned about Miranza – only recently freed from captivity after being tortured by an enemy none of them had even seen coming – to pay much attention to Dorne or her commanding officer and husband, Major Aethan Tigano. Dorne had been pregnant at the time, Theron remembered; he wondered what had happened to her husband and the child, and how she’d come to be working as Jace’s personal assistant instead of serving as a member of Havoc Squad.

Theron could tell that Dorne recognized him from the way her blue eyes narrowed, but she was too well-trained and diplomatic to say anything. She had simply given Theron and then Jace a _Look_ before reciting Jace’s schedule and departing. Theron was glad; as much as he was curious about her and her family – and grateful for the care they’d shown Miranza – he didn’t feel like including her in his little father/son bonding ritual.

_Definitely need whiskey for this morning,_ Theron thought, swallowing his sadly alcohol-free caf. _A few shots of Whyren’s Reserve could really help this conversation along._ Not that Theron could afford Whyren’s Reserve, of course.

Truth be told, it wasn’t even the meet-and-greet with his father that made Theron yearn for a drink, nor was it being on Corellia again. He was tired and stressed and it was beginning to feel like this whole enterprise of Lana’s was going nowhere, and they were nowhere closer to locating Jedi Master Caedan Savarr or fighting off the Eternal Empire. Vector’s trip to Alderaan had been somewhat useful, insofar as he was able to reassure them of Killik support (for what it was worth – the Killiks had no intention of leaving Alderaan to provide that support, but they promised to protect the Dawn Herald and his mates, at least) and acquire intel on the Star Fortress overlooking the planet. But the cost of that diplomatic mission had almost been too high: the contagion he’d unwittingly brought back with him had nearly killed both Theron and Miranza, and the guilt the Joiner felt over that was clearly weighing him down. To make matters worse, Miranza had suffered some sort of relapse while they were scouting out the Star Fortress over Tatooine (Theron _knew_ they should have left someone behind at the safe house with her; he wished he’d been more insistent, but Miranza had assured them all that she was fine, just tired, and then they had come back to find her passed out and feverish on the kitchen floor). And then, of course, there was the fallout from that disaster on Zakuul, when Theron had managed to get himself captured and had his implants fried in the process. Once again, the intel they’d gained had proven useful, but it felt like they were continuously moving one step forward only to fall two steps back. It was no wonder he was being driven to drink.

“Have you heard from your – from Satele?” Jace asked, as the silence between the two of them seemed to stretch out unto eternity. As always it amused Theron that his father struggled to refer to Satele Shan as his mother, even though they were both perfectly aware that that’s who she was. She didn’t feel like Theron’s mother – but then, Theron wouldn’t know what that should feel like.

Theron shook his head, setting his cup down with a slight clatter. “No. I sent out feelers, but … so far, nothing.” He’d initiated an investigation into his mother’s disappearance early on, but he certainly didn’t know Satele well enough to be able to track her down. He didn’t think she’d fallen afoul of anything, but there was no way to know for certain. For all he knew she was in the same place the Outlander was – wherever that was – and they would find her when they found Caedan. Or she was off following the ‘will of the Force’ or some other equally obtuse Jedi concept. He had no way of knowing.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Jace said, although his voice lacked conviction. If he was worried, he didn’t let on. Theron wasn’t sure what – if anything – was still between his parents, but he didn’t know Jace well enough to get a good read on him. Perhaps he really didn’t care about what had happened to Satele, or perhaps he simply had too much to worry about without adding his ex-lover to the list.

The two of them lapsed into silence again and were momentarily saved by the arrival of their waiter. Theron wasn’t feeling especially hungry but he’d been living on rations and MREs for too long and Jace _did_ offer to pay, so he ended up ordering the ronto bacon special. Once the waiter left to place their orders Theron busied himself with pretending to be overly interested in doctoring his caf, adding the precise amount of sugar and cream to cut the bitterness. Despite his caffeine addiction he wasn’t actually a big fan of the taste of caf; he mostly just consumed the stuff to avoid resorting to stims. The toe of his boot bumped against the duffel bag under the table – one of the reasons for his visit with Jace, the bag was stuffed with clothes and other odds and ends from Theron’s apartment on Coruscant. Thanks to the Eternal Empire’s blockade over Coruscant it was difficult to get on or off the planet, but Jace had the connections to manage it for himself. Theron had asked him to grab a few things from his apartment, and his father had responded by – apparently – ransacking the place. He hadn’t had the opportunity to go through the duffel just yet, but he was fairly confident Jace had crammed pretty much everything of importance into the bag. And in a way it was kind of sad, how easily the bulk of Theron’s life fit into one medium-sized duffel.

Jace shifted awkwardly across from him, clearing his throat. Theron looked up from his caf, studying his father from across the table. The older man looked like there was something on his mind, something troubling him. Theron was tempted to tell him to spit it out, but figured it was better to let Jace get to it in his own time.

“You know,” Jace commented thoughtfully, “if Saresh knew I was meeting with you here, she’d probably want me to arrest you and haul you back to Coruscant with me.”

Theron nearly spat his caf onto the table, but managed to swallow just in time. Instead he arched an inquiring eyebrow at his father. “Are you planning to do that?”

Jace chuckled dryly and shook his head. “I don’t think that’d sit terribly well with your bodyguard over there.” Lifting his cup, he gave a mock toast in Rekka’s direction, and Theron resisted the urge to turn and look at her. He was well aware of the bounty hunter’s presence; while a Pureblood Sith or a Killik Joiner might have stood out in a crowd of Republic citizens, Rekka – sans Mandalorian armour, of course – blended in perfectly, just another pretty, dark-haired woman sitting alone enjoying a quiet breakfast. Theron was impressed his father had picked up on her, but it really shouldn’t have surprised him: Jace Malcom was nothing if not exceedingly good at what he did.

“What would the charges be, just out of curiosity?” Theron asked. There didn’t seem to be any point in pretending Rekka wasn’t there to keep an eye on him, and he was reasonably confident Jace had men of his own in place – just in case.

“Do you really have to ask, Theron?” It was Jace’s turn to arch an eyebrow at his son, and while his tone was light Theron could detect the faint disapproval written across his face. “Treason, for one. Colluding with the enemy, for another.”

Theron swallowed heavily, but deliberately kept his own tone light. “Treason, huh?” He couldn’t exactly deny collusion; of Lana’s growing alliance, Theron was the only Republic representative. He didn’t tend to think of Vector or Miranza – or, stars, even Lana herself – as Imperials, but there was little point in pretending they were otherwise. Unless they were working under cover, the moment any of them opened their mouths it would be perfectly obvious where they hailed from. Miranza and Lana both had the most clear-cut Kaasian accents Theron had ever heard.

“The Republic signed a treaty with the Eternal Empire, Theron,” Jace said, although the way the scars twisted around his mouth Theron could tell his father wasn’t happy about it. “You’re working with Imps to undermine that.”

“Last I heard,” Theron said carefully, gaze focused on his drink – _stars, I wish this was whiskey_ – “Saresh isn’t Supreme Chancellor anymore.”

“We both know Madon is just a puppet. Saresh is still the one pulling the strings in the Senate.” Jace didn’t look any happier about that than he had about the treaty with Zakuul. He sighed, meeting his son’s gaze across the table. “Do you really think this Jedi is still alive?”

Theron opened his mouth to answer, only to close it again when the waiter returned with their food. Once their plates were laid out he took a moment to stare down at the platter of eggs and bacon, and his lack of appetite reared its ugly head again. The food looked delicious and smelled even better, but he wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to wrap up this little chat with Jace and get back to Vector and Miranza.

“I don’t know,” he answered finally before tucking into the bacon. He chewed for a few seconds then continued, “His brother is convinced, but …” _But he could just be in denial._ Theron didn’t say the words, but the concern had certainly been raised before. Miranza, in particular, was skeptical. “We just don’t know. Micah’s not the only person who’s come forward suggesting Caedan might still be alive, though. There have been rumours … reports … Lana thinks it’s worth pursuing, at least.”

“Lana Beniko?” Jace’s expression was disapproving. “The Minister of Sith Intelligence?”

“ _Former_ Minister,” Theron corrected, unsurprised that his father was aware of Lana’s previous occupation. He could practically feel her wincing all the way from Zakuul at the use of her old title. Lana had always hated titles. “She’s just Lana now.”

Jace set his fork down onto his plate and folded his arms across his impressively broad chest. “And your two Imps?”

Theron didn’t need him to clarify who he meant. “What about them?” he asked, a note of warning in his voice.

“Are they involved in this … hare-brained scheme?”

“Yes,” Theron said. “They are. Not because they’re Imperials, not because Lana’s an Imperial, but because this is what needs to be done if we’re to get rid of Arcann and the Eternal Empire.”

“And when this is all over – assuming it’s ever over and you do manage to defeat Arcann – what then? You’ll come back to the Republic, go back to working for the SIS, and just move on? No more Imps, no more treason?”

Theron felt a pang of terror at the idea of not being with Vector and Miranza, and he shook his head, letting out another heavy sigh. He knew what his father wanted him to say: that yes, once Emperor Arcann was gone and the Republic was freed from the tyranny of the Eternal Empire, he and his two Imperial lovers would part ways and he’d go back to being the poster boy for the SIS. He was an excellent liar, he could have said it, could have made Jace believe it. But the words wouldn’t come.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’m coming back. I don’t know where I’m going, but wherever it is, it’ll be with them – with Vector and Miranza.”

“Your Imps.”

“ _Vector and Miranza,_ ” Theron repeated, meeting Jace’s disapproving glare. Even as he said it he was aware of how young he must sound to his father – like a teenager trying to defend his high school crush. “I love them. I’m not leaving them.”

Jace opened his mouth, no doubt to argue the matter further, then shut it with a loud click. For a moment he just stared at Theron, then he sighed and shook his head.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it and I don’t know what to make of it,” he admitted finally, “but I don’t have the right to question your choices. I haven’t earned that right. And …” He shook his head again, a bemused expression on his face. “A part of me is jealous of you – of your conviction. I should’ve fought like this for your mother, but instead I let her call the shots. I didn’t push, even though I wanted to. Maybe if I had … well, maybe you and I wouldn’t be here now, practically strangers. Maybe if I’d raised you – if me and Satele had raised you instead of Master Zho – you wouldn’t have needed to turn to a couple of Imps to find … whatever it is you were looking for.”

“Maybe,” Theron replied, doing his best to keep his doubt out of his voice.

“You’re happy with them? They’re good to you?”

Theron smiled, ducking his head and gazing down at his plate. “Yeah,” he said, voice soft. “I … I am. They are.” _My sun rises and sets on them,_ he wanted to add, but was afraid Jace would think he was going too far – even if it was the truth. Miranza and Vector were the centre of his universe, and if it had taken the galaxy falling apart for them to be together, then perhaps he owed Emperor Arcann for it. Even if the Eternal Empire was defeated he couldn’t imagine a reality where he would let himself be parted from them again.

Something softened on Jace’s face and the corner of his mouth twitched, ever so slightly, into a smile. Shaking his head, he bent and reached for something under the table, pulling out a couple of flimsi file folders. He slapped the folders onto the table and pushed them towards Theron.

“I didn’t give these to you,” he said quietly. “You’ve never seen them. Read them and burn them when you’re done.”

Curiosity sparked, Theron flipped open the first file folder and read the name at the top of the first page: _Kaliyo Djannis._ Inside were a few neatly typed-out sheets of paper that included still frames from what he suspected were security recordings, and a detailed blueprint and schematics.

“She’s on Belsavis?” he asked, eyes skimming the blueprint. “What were the charges?” Belsavis was the top-secret Republic prison planet; he’d had an unfortunate visit there himself a few years ago, back when he was still the mind-controlled puppet of a sadist and his co-conspirators in the Star Cabal. He certainly hadn’t expected Miranza’s former crew-mate to wind up there.

Jace shrugged. “I didn’t ask. So far as I know she isn’t officially a prisoner, but she’s there, in max-sec. From the sound of things she’s made herself queen of the place – got her own gang, manages to smuggle in drugs, weapons and other contraband. She’ll be hard to get to, obviously, but since she’s not on record the Republic certainly isn’t going to raise a fuss if you bust her out.”

“I assume the planet is still a shit-show, though, right?”

Another shrug. Theron shook his head and turned his attention to the second folder, and if Kaliyo’s file had been a surprise, this was … this was something else. He recognized the picture right away: a promotional shot taken mid-action on Corellia during the height of the Republic’s liberation efforts. Caedan Savarr, clad in a short brown tunic with heavy pauldrons, the symbols of both the Republic and the Jedi Order decorating both shoulders, twin blue lightsabers flashing in his hands. He was a tall, handsome human with short auburn hair and a neatly-trimmed goatee, and while Theron couldn’t see his eyes he knew they were a brilliant shade of green. A broad scar cut across his face, over the bridge of his nose; from what Theron knew he’d received that scar while a prisoner of the Sith Emperor.

“Where did you get this?” Theron breathed, flipping through the pages, skimming through a heavily redacted biography of the Jedi’s life and training on Tython. Theron hadn’t realized it before, but Caedan had been a Padawan on Tython back when Master Zho had sent him for training. If it hadn’t been for Theron’s lack of Force sensitivity the two of them might have met nearly two decades ago. They were almost the same age. “I asked, but the archivist said his records were sealed.”

Jace nodded, looking smug. “Sealed upon his death – or alleged death, anyway. I called in a few favours. I figured, if you really are serious about going after him – if he’s even alive – it might be useful for you to have a better idea about who he is. Or was.”

“I met him,” Theron said, still looking down at the folder. More pictures: Caedan as a young Padawan, grinning up at the holocam with a broad, toothy smile; Caedan standing with his creche-mates, arms around the shoulders of a tall Togruta boy and a slim, dark-skinned human girl; Caedan with his back to the cam, his face caught in profile, unaware that his picture was being taken. _Damn, he’s always been good-looking._ “He was on Ziost, back when … before the Emperor destroyed it. We barely made it out alive.”

“I hope he’s still alive, Theron. I hope he’s worth it. Him, and your Imps – ah, I mean, your … your lovers.”

Theron drew in a deep breath and, wiping at his lips with his napkin, gave his father a small nod before pushing his chair back and standing up. He bent, grabbing the straps of the duffel, then stood and held his hand out to Jace. His father blinked in surprise before accepting the handshake. His hand was warm and solid in Theron’s grasp.

“Take care of yourself, Theron,” Jace said, releasing him and waving to the waiter for the bill. “It’ll probably be a while before I can sneak away for another meet-up.”

“Thanks, Jace.” Theron smiled at his father and slung the straps of the duffel over his shoulder. “For breakfast and … and for all of this. I appreciate it. I know you’re not exactly thrilled with my life choices, but … We really _are_ trying to make a difference in the galaxy. A positive difference.”

Jace just smiled and shook his head. When the waiter arrived with the bill Theron thanked his father again and took his leave, heading across the patio and inside the restaurant. Just as he drew close to the exit a blonde figure in a Republic uniform approached him.

“A moment, if you please, Agent Shan.” Accustomed as Theron was to Imperial accents it took him a few seconds to realize how out of place Elara Dorne sounded in a restaurant filled with Republic citizens.

“Ah, it’s just Theron now,” he said, letting her draw him off to one side, away from the general traffic.

“Theron, then.” Lieutenant Dorne gave him a long look, pausing as if trying to decide where best to start. He let her take her time; she was the one who approached him, and no doubt she had a reason for it.

Biting her lip, Dorne gave a cautious look around the restaurant, making sure the two of them had some privacy before at last asking, “The file Commander Malcom gave you, the one on Kaliyo Djannis … Did you have a chance to look it over?”

“Briefly,” Theron acknowledged, wondering where this was leading. “She’s on Belsavis, in the maximum security division?”

Dorne nodded and fell silent again. Whatever it was, she was clearly torn on whether or not she should say anything, and that just piqued Theron’s curiosity. He wondered if she had been the one to put the two files together for his father, and what, exactly her role was.

“I know who you are,” she said at last, having made her decision. “I remember you, from Alderaan. I remember thinking something wasn’t quite right with that scenario – the prisoner transfer, you, that Imperial spy. It didn’t feel right, but Aeth and I, we had our orders, and it wasn’t until much later that I met Commander Malcom. You take after him a bit, you know. He worries about you.”

Theron thought his father was more worried about him ending up in a Republic prison or before a firing squad, but it was nice to think the man cared more deeply than that. He kept his peace, sensing that Dorne wasn’t finished.

“Belsavis …” She paused, chewing nervously at her lower lip, then pressed forward. “It’s a trap, Theron. Your father is hoping to draw your Imperial spy out and capture her. He thinks if he can get her out of the way you’ll come back to the Republic. He’s planning to lure your spy to Belsavis and take her prisoner there, along with the rest of your team.”

“Is Kaliyo really there?” Theron bit down on a number of other things he wanted to ask and say, forcing himself to swallow the sudden sense of betrayal he felt at Dorne’s revelation of his father’s plan. Had Jace meant any of what he had said to Theron at the end? Was all of that about being envious of Theron’s convictions and happy that Theron had found someone to love – was that just a lie? Something to lure him into a false sense of complacency so he wouldn’t suspect anything was amiss with Belsavis? Or was Dorne the liar, feeding him false information for … for what purpose?

He’d had enough of conspiracies, back when he’d been a prisoner of Samar and the Star Cabal. He didn’t need this.

“Yes, that much is the truth,” Dorne admitted. “Djannis is there, in maximum security, but Commander Malcom has teams there, waiting for you and your Imperial spy.”

“Miranza,” Theron corrected, for the second time that morning. “Her name is Miranza.” He studied Dorne’s face, looking for the telltale signs that she was lying, but he saw nothing there. Nothing but sincerity and the conviction that she was doing the right thing by telling him about his father’s plan. “Why are you telling me this? He’s your boss. This is treason.”

Dorne nodded, chewing her lip again. “I saw the way you looked at her, back on Alderaan. You had the same look on your face Aethan has when he looks at me. She’s not just another Imperial to you, no more than I am to him.”

“Well, no, of course she’s not. I love her.”

“I’ve seen her file – what’s left of it, anyway,” Dorne went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’ve seen what she’s capable of. And I already know what you’re capable of. Commander Malcom told me what you’re intending to do – that you’re hoping to find and rescue Master Savarr, and go after Arcann and the Eternal Empire. If there’s anyone who can do it, it will be your team. I don’t like betraying Commander Malcom like this – he saved me, Theron, and I owe him a better turn than this, but … I don’t think we stand a chance of winning this if his plan works and your team gets taken down. I think we need you.”

Theron didn’t know what to say, and so for a moment he and Dorne simply looked at each other. Finally the blonde lieutenant nodded, smiling faintly, and gave him a crisp salute. His own return salute was somewhat sloppier – he was well and truly out of the habit – but her smile broadened, reaching her clear blue eyes.

“Thanks for this, Lieutenant,” he said at last. “I appreciate the warning.”

“Don’t mention it, Theron,” she replied, then ducked her head, hiding a small chuckle. When she looked up her expression had sobered. “No, really: don’t mention this. I don’t fancy being court-martialled.” She nodded again and finished, “Good luck, Theron.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Theron said again. Then, as an afterthought he added, “And say ‘hi’ to your husband for me. He’s a good guy.”

“He is,” Dorne agreed, turning to head back out onto the patio to rejoin her commander. “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

And with that, Lieutenant Dorne disappeared through the patio doors, leaving Theron alone. He clutched the two flimsi folders to his chest, hoisted the duffel higher up on to his shoulder, and left the restaurant. Rekka followed along close behind, still shadowing him without giving the appearance of doing so. He wondered how much of his conversation with Lieutenant Dorne the bounty hunter had heard, and decided he didn’t want to know. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Dorne’s revelations about his father, and decided he didn’t want to know that, either. All he wanted to do was get back to the _Mercurial,_ where Miranza and Vector were waiting for him. One thing he did know was the answer to Jace Malcom’s question: yes, they were worth it. To him, they would _always_ be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas. This song never fails to make me think of Theron.
> 
> I'm actually a fan of Jace Malcom and have tried to write him sympathetically in the past, but depending on which direction I take as we go further into KotFE/KotET/Iokath some elements of his personality need to be addressed. This was my take on doing so.


	8. No Masters or Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vector and Theron want to get work done. Miranza has other ideas. (It's smut, guys. Just smut.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for Cinlat, who enabled this plot bunny. This is her fault. :D

**_Nar Shaddaa, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

“Micah said he’s in.”

Tearing his gaze away from his datapad, Vector looked up at Theron in mild confusion. The two of them had been working in silence for close to an hour, and this non sequitur was the first time Theron had spoken in that entire time, both of them far too engrossed in their own work for conversation.

“On piloting us to Belsavis, you mean?” Vector clarified cautiously. Theron didn’t look over at him but he did nod in confirmation, and Vector felt compelled to press further. “You did make it clear to him that we do not believe his brother is on Belsavis, correct? That we are looking for Kaliyo, rather than Master Savarr?”

Theron nodded again, still studying his datapad closely. “He knows. I didn’t beat around the bush – we still have no clue where Caedan is. As far as Micah’s concerned, though, breaking Kaliyo out of max-sec gets us one step closer to finding and rescuing Caedan.”

“Ah.” Vector kept his tone carefully noncommittal, although he didn’t feel as confident about the chances of tracking the missing Master Jedi down as Micah apparently did. The fact of the matter was that if they were going to rescue Kaliyo, they would need someone to be able to get them on and off of Belsavis without attracting attention from the Republic forces guarding the planet. Micah Savarr was an exceptionally skilled pilot who had been known to smuggle goods and people in and out of war zones for years. They needed him, and if using his hope of one day rescuing Caedan was what it took to bring him in on this task then Vector was willing to quash any moral objections he might have on the subject. Besides, they _were_ trying to find Caedan Savarr, so at least he could comfort himself in the knowledge that they weren’t deliberately misleading Micah on the state of things just to lure him in.

“And the others?” he asked, after a moment of thought.

Theron chuckled. “Team Mando is in, for sure. I told Rekka we were planning to break into Belsavis to rescue Kaliyo, and her exact response was ‘Theron, you had me at _break_.’ As for Barrazhat, he said - and I quote - ‘If this is a marriage proposal, Shan, then I fucking accept.’ So yeah, they’re on board. Of course they are.”

Vector returned the chuckle, momentarily allowing himself to be distracted by the mental image of Theron in Barrazhat’s red-skinned, heavily muscled arms. It was a pity he was fairly certain the Pureblood Sith’s tastes didn’t run to men, and that Barrazhat and Rekka were very emphatically monogamous. He thought he would have rather enjoyed watching Theron with the two of them.

“Never let it be said that you do not know how to woo the Mandalorians, love,” Vector commented dryly before letting his tired eyes return to his datapad.

It had been another sleepless night, and they were happening more and more often lately. The newest revelation from Theron – that Kaliyo Djannis was being held in Belsavis and that it was intended as a trap to capture Miranza in order to ‘free’ Theron from her influence – added but one more nightmare to Vector’s already lengthy list. He knew perfectly well that both Theron and Miranza had every intention of walking into that trap – how could they not, when it seemed that Kaliyo had been taken solely for the purpose of playing bait? – but they were trying to devise a plan that would enable them all to walk back out again. Telling himself that it wouldn’t be the first trap they had deliberately triggered did little to alleviate Vector’s growing mountain of worries.

Dreams of Ziost were bad enough. Vector was no stranger to nightmares; even before embarking on this strange and wondrous relationship with Miranza, and then later on with Theron as well, his life had had enough twists and turns to give him restless nights. Toss in Corellia – both when Miranza deliberately handed herself over to Hunter and the Star Cabal for torture, and when she and Theron were held there again years later – throw in a dash of Alderaan and a pinch of a murky swamp-planet with no name, and Vector Hyllus had enough nightmare material for a dozen men over a dozen lifetimes. Theron’s brief capture on Zakuul was barely a blip on the radar, not when it was so quickly overtaken by new fears and worries following both Theron and Miranza falling ill with the _drowning sorrows_ , the infection that Vector had had every reason to believe wasn’t contagious outside of Killiks and Joiners.

_“Is it possible your mates have been exposed to Killik pheromones for too long?”_ Healer’s voice echoed in Vector’s mind from the all-too-brief holocall they had shared during Miranza’s lengthy convalescence. _“We do not suggest they have begun the Joining process, but perhaps they have undergone sufficient physiological changes, such as might make them more Killik-like in nature?”_

Vector had wanted to say no, that of course he had been careful to keep Miranza and Theron well away from any potential risk of Joining, but it was impossible to be one hundred percent certain. They spent so much time with him – could he possibly be unintentionally emitting pheromones that might be conducive to Joining? Had they spent too much time on Alderaan, surrounded by Killiks? Had they shared too much from the membrosia pools? He didn’t know. It was impossible to say, save that he knew they weren’t _fully_ Joined, not even close. If the process had begun it was only in its early infancy. They weren’t a part of the Hive-mind, they couldn’t perceive auras or know his thoughts.

If they could read Vector’s thoughts, they wouldn’t be leaving him alone with them.

Stifling a sigh, Vector rubbed his hand over his eyes and rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch out the knots and kinks that came from spending too long hunched over a datapad. Across the cluttered safe house living room Theron likewise stretched and sighed, shifting into a more comfortable position sprawled across the lumpy couch. Their Nar Shaddaa safe house was cozy and crammed full of furniture and equipment, supplies boxed up in preparation of a rainy day (and when, these days, _wasn’t_ it raining?). Theron had been hoping to meet up with Micah at the Slippery Slopes cantina but had just missed him, and Miranza was using the time stuck on Nar Shaddaa as an opportunity to track down a lead on some encryption tools that would make it easier for her and Theron to slice through Zakuulan security. They weren't just lazing about being idle, but even with a mountain of information to go through Vector worried their time could be better spent elsewhere.

The ‘fresher door opened with a waft of warm, damp air as Miranza joined them fresh from the shower, her hair wrapped up in a towel and a bathrobe tied loosely around her slender frame. She sank down onto the couch beside Theron, fixing the Republic agent with an assessing gaze that Theron, for his part, seemed entirely unaware of. Vector watched out of the corner of his eye, most of his attention fixed on his datapad as he continued trying to sort out the tangle of schematics for the Belsavis prison sector Kaliyo was reported to be holed up in. _No, that route won't do ... Too many guards ... And that one - oh, no, that leads to a dead end ..._

Squeezing herself in behind Theron, Miranza’s hands went to his shoulders, massaging him through the thin fabric of his well-worn Rotworms T-shirt. Theron tensed briefly, then closed his eyes and let out a contented hum, relaxing back into her touch. Miranza leaned forward to whisper something in his ears and Vector saw a faint blush spread across Theron’s cheeks.

Curious as to where things might be headed, Vector leaned back against his own over-stuffed chair and continued to observe the pair through his peripheral vision, keeping a close eye on his datapad to give the appearance of being too caught up in his own work to pay attention to them. Miranza murmured something again, then followed it up by capturing the fleshy lower half of Theron’s earlobe between her teeth and tugging lightly, her hands sliding up and under his T-shirt to stroke the smooth bare skin beneath. Vector watched her bring her hands forward and knew from the way Theron bit his lip that she was brushing her fingertips over his nipples.

“I’m trying to work here, lover,” Theron chided her, feigning interest in his own datapad.

“Oh, apologies!” Miranza replied, all innocence as she pulled her hands away and made a great show of dusting them off and holding them up. _See? No touching!_ She settled back in against the couch, putting a bit of distance between herself and Theron, and Vector couldn’t help but notice the way her movement caused the sash of her bathrobe to loosen ever so slightly. The robe fell open at her neck, baring a smooth expanse of creamy pale skin, and as she wriggled – all innocence – on the couch her legs were bared all the way up to her thighs. She caught Vector watching her and winked, adding, “Don’t let me distract you, darling.”

Theron’s eyes darted to the exposed skin just inches away from his face, and Vector saw the way he licked his lips, swallowing visibly. A faint rosy hue was beginning to suffuse his aura, one that Vector knew so very, very well.

“You’re an evil woman,” Theron commented, his voice suddenly gone husky. “You know I’m busy.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Miranza said sweetly, even as her hand drifted to the neckline of her robe, fingers brushing idly over her skin only to disappear beneath the soft fabric. Her head fell back against the couch, her eyes drifting closed as her hand continued to move slowly and enticingly under her robe. “You’re busy. I’m just … keeping myself entertained.”

And then, as if dismissing the two men outright, Miranza popped the fingers of her other hand into her mouth and gave them a lick. Once thoroughly wetted she slipped them down between her legs, her red-lipped mouth falling open in a soft sigh as she began to touch herself.

“ _Stars,_ ” Theron groaned, tossing his datapad onto the table and grabbing Miranza by the legs so that he could pull her up onto the couch beside him. Her eyes flew open and she fixed him with a smug smirk, letting him manhandle her until she was lying on the couch under him, her robe opened and her legs parted with him between them. Vector felt his mouth grow dry and he slowly licked his lips, still doing his best to feign disinterest.

“I thought you were working?” Miranza queried, in that same false innocent voice.

“Believe me, this is working for me,” Theron muttered, before hooking his arms under her legs and hoisting her thighs up in the air. Miranza let out a small gasp as Theron buried his face between her legs, her hands going down to fist his hair.

It was working for Vector, too. He set his own datapad down with more care than Theron had done, but made no effort to move towards the couple entangled on the couch. Instead he settled back against his chair, enjoying the sights and sounds before him: the wet, sloppy noises coming from Theron’s mouth, the soft sighs and gasps Miranza made, the way Theron’s back bowed over Miranza’s body and the contrast of his caf-with-cream-coloured hands against her pale thighs. Vector could think of few sights more wondrous than that of the two people he loved most in the galaxy pleasuring each other.

What’s more was the way their auras mixed and mingled, Theron’s radiant blues and greens shot through with the rosy glow of lust, blending with the vibrant purples and indigos of Miranza’s aura until it was almost impossible to separate one from the other. While some might consider the Joining to be distasteful, so far as Vector was concerned the positives far outweighed the negatives - and not the least among those positives was the way his enhanced senses enabled him to perceive the world. It was impossible to convey the sheer beauty of how Miranza's and Theron's auras twined together, the way that rosy lust spread throughout them both, the flicker of sparks and embers that played across their skin, visible to Vector's eyes and Vector's eyes alone.

“Join us, Vector,” Miranza breathed, opening her eyes long enough to catch sight of him watching them. Her gaze was heavy-lidded, her pupils blown wide with desire. Her voice was a faint rasp, filled with longing.

“Regrettably, beloved, we are in the midst of something,” Vector replied, the datapad lying facedown on the table beside him giving the lie to his apparent disinterest.

Theron released Miranza’s thighs and pushed himself upright, pulling the towel free from her hair so that he could tangle his hands through her blonde curls and yank her to him. They kissed, long and hard, hungrily, and to Vector it seemed a dance or a battle: first Theron, pressing Miranza down against the cushions as his mouth sought hers; then Miranza, pushing back, her own hands gripped hard on the back of his head as she pulled him down with her to the couch. Miranza’s bathrobe and Theron’s T-shirt were both discarded somewhere along the way, and then Miranza’s hands were struggling with the fastenings of Theron’s pants as she sought for the contact of more skin.

Deciding he’d had enough of observing - _that didn't take long_ \- Vector pushed himself up off the chair and moved in behind Theron, who was momentarily on top and pinning Miranza against the couch. Sliding his palm down Theron’s chest Vector drew the other man back, pulling him tight against him, giving Miranza room to work on Theron’s pants. He leaned down, capturing Theron’s lips with his own, tasting the whimper Theron made when Miranza finally freed his cock from his pants and began giving him a taste of his own medicine. Vector wrapped his arm around Theron’s chest, keeping him pulled in close, and used his free hand to grip Theron’s short dark hair and yank his head to one side so that he could focus on the other man’s exposed neck.

“No more work?” Theron managed to gasp out, writhing back against Vector’s body.

“As you said,” Vector replied, throwing Theron’s words back at him, “this is working for us.”

“F- _fuck_!” Theron groaned, both hands dropping to Miranza’s head although he made no effort to guide her movements.

_Excellent plan_ , Vector thought, nipping lightly at the spot where Theron’s shoulder met his neck. Theron groaned again, as much in response to what Vector was doing as to Miranza’s slow, deliberate mouth on his cock. From his angle Vector had a fantastic view, as Theron’s hands kept Miranza’s hair from her face and he could see every kiss, lick and suck. Vector pulled away, guiding Theron into lying on his back on the couch. Then, drawing Miranza away momentarily, he kissed his wife before helping her straddle herself over Theron’s loose-draped body, letting her get settled above him and pulling back when she slowly sank down over Theron’s cock.

“Stars,” Theron whispered, as Miranza began to move her hips, “You’re so fucking wet.”

“I was thinking about this in the shower,” Miranza confessed, grinding herself against him. “Thinking about how badly I wanted you both … Thinking about how much I wanted to see you both come apart …”

Theron made an inarticulate noise, bucking up into her. His hand twitched away from Miranza’s hips, reaching out to hook fingers into the waistband of Vector’s pants. Vector let himself be pulled in closer, unfastening his own pants and letting them fall to the floor, joining Theron’s and Miranza’s discarded clothing. Theron’s fingers curled around Vector’s cock, the tip of his thumb rubbing over the head, slicking through the moisture that had begun to collect there. Miranza leaned forward over Theron’s body, hips still gliding over him, and as she opened her mouth Theron guided Vector’s cock between her lips.

Pinned as he was under Miranza’s writhing body Theron could not do much beyond thrusting his hips up and into her, but his hands were free and he used them liberally, stroking the length of Vector that Miranza’s mouth couldn’t reach while his other hand tweaked and toyed with Miranza’s nipples. Miranza licked her tongue up and down Vector’s cock, letting Theron guide her movements, her own pleasure causing her to let out little gasps and moans that buzzed delightedly over Vector’s saliva-slicked, sensitive skin. Then, releasing Vector and pushing herself up against Theron’s body, Miranza began working herself faster and faster against Theron, grinding herself to orgasm against him. Theron let out a soft noise of protest as Miranza drew away, but then Vector settled himself over him, carefully straddling Theron’s head between his legs as he bent and let Miranza feed Theron’s cock into his mouth. He could taste her pleasure on him, the salty-sweet tang of her juices making Theron wet and slick against Vector’s tongue.

Vector felt the couch shift as Miranza climbed to her feet and moved to kneel at the other end, by Theron’s head. As Theron began running his own tongue up and down Vector’s length Miranza added her mouth to the mix, and Vector was lost in the twin sensations of Theron’s mouth on his cock and Miranza’s on his balls.

Vector had to close his eyes; he was too overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and sensations. Theron’s mouth was warm and wet and he was making the sweetest sounds against Vector's flesh, and Vector could tell by the taste of Theron that he was getting close, and _stars,_ he was close, too. Then Miranza’s hand curled around his cock, jerking him in the rhythm he loved best, and he felt her tongue probing and the next thing Vector knew he was coming, hard, spurting out over Miranza’s hand and Theron’s lips. Theron let out a noise of triumph before spilling into Vector’s mouth.

When it was over and Vector and Theron had worked together to coax another orgasm from Miranza, and the three of them were snuggled together sweaty and breathless and exultant, Vector dropped his head onto Theron’s shoulder and closed his eyes again. Miranza’s hands continued to roam their bodies, no longer trying to entice, but simply taking pleasure in being able to touch them. _Hers,_ her touch seemed to say. They were hers. Vector kissed Theron’s shoulder, unable to restrain his affection for the other man, and Theron sighed in sleepy, satiated contentment.

Nothing was resolved, nothing was fixed: Vector knew this, and he knew that Theron and Miranza knew it as well. All the problems that had been there before this interlude were still there, and no doubt the nightmares would still be with him when he closed his eyes to sleep that night. He would still remember Ziost, and Corellia, and Alderaan, and all the other times he had come far too close to losing one or both of them. He would still imagine Theron’s seizure – which he hadn’t seen, and yet he couldn’t decide if that was somehow better or worse, because his own imagination ran wild with speculation as to what had happened. He would still be able to picture how small and still Miranza had seemed, how pale against the hospital sheets while a ventilator breathed for her and her body struggled to fight off the _drowning sorrows_ and her resulting anaphylactic shock from the treatment. He would still worry, they would still worry, and somewhere in Zakuul he was certain Emperor Arcann was still plotting to cause more suffering across the galaxy, and yet …

And yet, for now – for the next ten minutes, or an hour, or however much time they were allotted, Vector would sit, naked flesh pressed to sweaty, naked flesh, and be content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter comes from a lyric in "Take Me to Church" by Hozier. Not only is that man's voice pure sex (as far as I'm concerned), but I felt there was something thematically appropriate about using a song about a gay man struggling with the strictures of his faith to write about a bisexual polyamorous multiracial cross-faction triad. Because for all that I tend to write their relationship as uncomplicated, there are a number of obvious factors that make what Theron, Vector and Miranza have _incredibly_ complicated.


	9. Rusty Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes go to Belsavis. Unsurprisingly, this proves to be a Very Bad Idea™.

**_Belsavis, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

Ducking through a side entrance – accessible only by climbing several stories up a sheer vertical face – Theron helped pull Miranza and then Vector inside, then slumped down against the wall, his arms and legs feeling like jelly. The entrance was narrow and the five of them – Theron, the two Imperials, and the two bounty hunters – barely made it into the small space. Rekka and Barrazhat took their time carefully putting away all the climbing gear, checking to ensure that the ropes, pitons and other accoutrements were in good working condition before fitting them into their carrying cases and then tucking them into a low alcove beside the doorway. While the two hunters worked on their gear, Vector, Theron and Miranza removed all their heavy outerwear, stripping out of insulated jackets, durable thick climbing gloves and the rest of their warm clothing. As with the climbing equipment, their cold climate gear was checked over for wear and tear before being folded up and packed away. There was very little room left in the alcove once all their gear was stowed, but this way the five of them wouldn’t need to hustle through the prison lugging around an extra twenty-odd kilos worth of stuff.

Vector reached out and placed the back of his hand over Miranza’s forehead before turning his worried gaze to Theron. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” Theron answered, as Miranza murmured something to the same effect. He understood Vector’s concerns – technically speaking, Theron wasn’t even supposed to be driving a _speeder_ , much less climbing up the sheer side of a mountain. But it had been weeks since his fever-induced seizure, and while they were all keeping a wary eye on him he really did feel fine. A little tired, perhaps, but who wouldn’t be tired after hauling themselves up a frozen block of stone and ice? Miranza, too, looked a bit peaked but it had been ages since her relapse on Tatooine and her health had been steadily improving since then.

Rekka shoved a ration bar into Theron’s hands, along with a bottle of water. His hands were still shaking from the climb so it took him a few tries to get the wrapper off, but once he did he crammed the tasteless ration bar into his mouth and knocked it back with a handful of bites before chugging the water. Once he was done eating he pulled out his datapad with the map and blueprints of the prison, opening it up to their current location to get his bearings.

The trip in had not been without its complications. Since they were forced to fly in under the radar (literally) they couldn’t make use of either the Republic or the Imperial travel routes and needed to bypass both factions' orbital stations. Micah, fortunately, was an extremely experienced pilot whose ship – not unlike the _Mercurial_ – could mask both its signature and its signal, so he was able to evade detection and land the XS freighter long enough for the team to disembark. As much as Theron would have felt better knowing their ride off Belsavis was close at hand Micah had taken the ship off-planet and would return when summoned; his plan was to go dark just outside the reach of either stations’ sensors and await their call. Theron didn’t like it, but it was better than risking the ship being found and potentially impounded (or worse) if Micah and the freighter remained on Belsavis. Besides that, Micah wasn’t really a part of their team, and as much as Theron appreciated the other man’s assistance he wouldn’t have been completely comfortable having an unknown quantity working closely with them. Not because he didn’t trust Micah, but because Micah hadn’t worked with them before and they hadn’t spent time training with him.

Theron was surprised by the lack of Republic guards in the prison, at least in the tombs where Kaliyo Djannis was reportedly being held. Which wasn’t to say that there weren’t _any_ guards, but he had been expecting sentients, rather than the heavily armed and armoured droids they kept running into. His best guess was that his father was familiar with Miranza’s work – not to mention fully aware of Theron’s own skills and training – and didn’t want to put Republic soldiers in harm’s way by throwing them at their team. Droids, though: there were plenty of them, and most of them were flanked by those annoying little sentries that had the advanced stealth-detection systems, rendering his and Miranza’s stealth generators largely useless. Miranza could still get in closer to their enemies – she was sneakier than Theron, whereas Vector, Barrazhat and Rekka were not the least bit sneaky at all – but nine times out of ten her stealth field still ended up getting shut down before she could get a decent back-stab in.

Still, they had planned for this, and frankly the lack of sentient enemies made Theron feel significantly better about what they were doing. As furious as he was with Jace for setting a trap for Miranza (and, by extension, the rest of their team), he was grateful not to have to go up against Republic citizens. He was capable of being ruthless and pragmatic, but it was easier to do so when it wasn’t his own people he was hurting.

“Everyone good to go?” Barrazhat asked, the modulator in his helmet giving his voice an oddly tinny cast. He and Rekka hadn’t needed to wear cold weather gear; their Mandalorian armour had adjustments for climate control built in. Theron might have been a little envious if it weren’t for the fact that their beskar’gam armour probably weighed a ton. He preferred to travel light.

The rest of the team responded in the affirmative, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Theron hauled himself back to his feet, pleased to note that his legs no longer felt like jelly and his arms had stopped trembling from the effort of slogging his sorry ass up the side of a mountain. He gave his blaster pistols a quick check before hoisting his pack onto his back and shot Miranza a wry smile. Her colour was looking better – she no longer appeared on the verge of passing out – and the return smile she sent his way was incredibly reassuring.

“Ready for round two?” he asked.

She nodded, smile turning lopsided. “The sooner we fetch Kaliyo, the sooner we can get off this blasted planet.”

“What?” Theron joked, infusing his voice with mock surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re not a fan of Belsavis!”

“Honestly?” Miranza glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. “I’d rather the Empire had nuked Belsavis from orbit when we had the chance. It would have saved us all so much trouble.”

Theron didn’t respond out loud, but privately a part of him agreed. Officially, of course, he was horrified at Miranza’s casual suggestion of mass murder and destruction. Unofficially, though … Belsavis could be utterly obliterated and he probably wouldn’t bat an eye. Granted, the last time he’d been on the Republic prison planet he’d been the brain-washed puppet of a shadow conspiracy and his captor had used his conditioned keyword to force him to try and murder the woman he now loved, but in truth he felt Belsavis offered very little to the galaxy in its present state regardless of conspiracies and Star Cabals. The prison itself was a black mark on the Republic’s records and it was easily the galaxy’s worst-kept secret – to the best of Theron’s knowledge, the only people who _didn’t_ know the Republic stored their worst enemies on Belsavis were the innocent, often-times naïve citizens of the Republic itself. The Empire certainly wasn’t in the dark about it, and there were few people at Theron’s pay-grade (scratch that, _former_ pay-grade - rogue agents didn't make a salary) or higher who weren’t in the know.

“Nexu Two, scout ahead,” Rekka said, her soft voice echoing in the comm in Theron’s implant. “Nexu Five, you’re rear guard. One and Three, fan out. I’m on point.”

Following the bounty hunter’s marching orders, Theron drew both pistols and took the left-hand flank while Vector matched his pace to the right. Miranza flicked the switch on the stealth generator at her belt and faded from sight, her booted feet scarcely making a sound on the smooth stone tiles. Of the four of them Theron was the only one who didn’t have some means of detecting Miranza: both Rekka and Barrazhat had scanners in their visors that could see through stealth tech, and Vector was able to see his wife’s aura. Theron had a rough idea of where she was, however, because Rekka trailed a few steps behind her, her shiny black and red armour making her the obvious target.

The first wave of droids rounded the corner, the massive oppressor droid in front sending out a handful of miniature spherical probes that immediately began scanning the area for hidden intruders. A shot rang out and the oppressor droid reeled back just as Miranza reappeared behind some crates, already taking aim on her next target, the red laser of her sniper rifle glinting off shiny casements. Theron took up a shooting stance, taking the oppressor down before it could target the woman who’d shot it, while Vector moved in, electrostaff poised to strike. More shots rang out as Rekka and Barrazhat began mowing down the smaller droids.

When the smoke cleared and the sparks died the team was surrounded by a pile of busted droid parts. Theron kicked at a manipulator that had fallen at his feet, sending it skidding off into the shadows. He was by no means an expert on droids, but he felt fairly confident that these were newer Republic models rather than the ancient mechs he’d previously seen the last time he was on Belsavis. This section of the prison was well-maintained, with up-to-date security systems and new tech. That bore out Lieutenant Dorne’s allegations that this was a trap. Most of Belsavis was run-down and neglected, and yet the area where Kaliyo was supposedly being held had clearly seen some recent renovations. Kaliyo didn't warrant that kind of security on her own; she was impressive, but she wasn't _that_ impressive. The Republic had bigger targets in mind.

After a quick check to ensure none of them were injured – none of them had even been tagged – they continued, repeating the process with the droids a few more times before coming to a T-junction. All five of them had memorized the prison layout, but just to be on the safe side Theron pulled out his datapad and surveyed the blueprints again anyway, confirming that they were headed in the right direction. As expected they took the left-hand turn, resuming their strike positions as they approached the bank of cells where Kaliyo Djannis was being held.

Theron found it somewhat ominous that the cells leading up to Kaliyo’s were all empty – empty, yet showing clear signs that they, like the rest of this section of the prison, had been recently overhauled. Theron couldn’t help but wonder which cell was supposed to be Miranza’s – and if any of them were intended for him.

“What the ever-loving _fuck_ are you doing here, Bugboy?” Kaliyo demanded from behind the force-field, her hands on her hips as she scowled out at Vector. Her gaze drifted to Theron and she did a double-take, obviously recognizing him from the previous times they’d met. It had been years since they’d last seen each other, but their earlier interactions had been memorable, to say the least.

Miranza’s stealth field dissipated and she reappeared directly in front of Kaliyo’s cell, already moving to join Theron by the controls. If Kaliyo’s imprisonment really was intended as a trap, attempting to slice the control panel for her cell would likely be the most obvious way to trigger it. Not that the remote location, lengthy hike and waves of droids hadn’t been enough of a deterrent.

Barrazhat and Rekka took up posts at the entrance to the bank of cells, blatantly ignoring the Rattataki in favour of keeping an eye on uninvited guests. Kaliyo ignored them in turn, far more interested in Miranza, Vector and Theron than in two Mandalorians she didn’t recognize.

Flashing back to the trap he’d stumbled into on Zakuul, Theron scanned the control panel several times in search of hidden triggers or bugs while Miranza searched the immediate vicinity of the doorway for any alarms or switches that might go off. Vector, while nowhere near the slicer that Miranza and Theron were, used his own Killik enhancements to search for traps, lifting his head and delicately sniffing at the air around the door as well as using his eyes and hands. Theron found one trigger tucked inside the keypad, set to sound an alarm or activate more force-fields in the event the incorrect password should be used. Miranza disarmed a row of switches at the top of the doorframe that were primed to trigger another trap if the force-field was turned off, and Vector made note of several infrared sensors that would be triggered if anyone tried to exit the cell. It was only once all three of them had pronounced the door and control panel clean that Theron set to with his slicing gear.

It wasn’t so much that the slicer trap on Zakuul had hurt or scared him – although, in fairness, it had certainly done both – but the resulting helplessness that had occurred when his implants had been fried. It took Theron a few seconds of deep, slow breathing to get his hands to stop shaking long enough for him to begin work on the panel, and it wasn’t until Vector gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and Miranza drew Kaliyo’s attention away from him that he felt comfortable enough to start working. Under normal circumstances he was certain he could have ignored the distraction that Kaliyo – and her impatience to be set free – presented, but he couldn’t help but notice her curious expression and the way her eyes seemed to linger on his hands. She didn’t say anything, though, and she let herself be distracted by Miranza’s gentle teasing over her predicament. With Vector supporting him and Kaliyo out of the way Theron was able to hunker down and begin the process of slicing the controls for the force-field.

Theron would have been insulted if the control panel had been too easy for him to slice. As it was he had to utilize both his implants and a considerable number of his tricks before he could get the panel to green-light, and they all held their breath as the shimmering yellow force-field slowly flickered and faded away. Kaliyo paused for a moment, examining the doorframe for any more traps, then cautiously stepped out into the hall.

Nothing happened.

_So this is what success feels like,_ Theron thought, meeting Vector’s wary smile with one of his own. _Neat._

Then, as if the universe or the Force or whatever it was was laughing at him, a red light flashed on the panel and there was an ominous clang from further down the hall, back the way they’d come. Rekka and Barrazhat exchanged glances, their expressions impossible to see thanks to their helmets, and Barrazhat jogged down the hall towards the source of the sound while the rest of them prepared their weapons. Theron handed Kaliyo one of his blasters, which she accepted from him with a curt nod, and Miranza switched on her stealth generator and disappeared.

Barrazhat returned a few seconds later, shrugging his broad shoulders expansively. “Hall’s now blocked by blast doors the way we came in.”

“Can we break through?” Kaliyo asked, sounding impatient.

Barrazhat shrugged again. “Not without a lot more detonite than we carted in.”

Theron whipped out his datapad as the others clustered in around him, Rekka and Barrazhat putting their backs to the group so that they could keep a watchful eye on their surroundings. He pulled up the schematics again, this time searching for another route out. They needed to get back to the alcove where their gear was stowed. The two Mandalorians wouldn’t have any trouble hiking through the snow and ice back to their evac point, but none of the rest of them was outfitted for cold weather and this zone of Belsavis was only marginally warmer than Hoth. They’d be dead inside of an hour if they ventured outside unprepared.

“This route loops back around,” Vector said, brushing the tip of one long finger over the surface of the datapad to draw their attention. “It will take us longer to escape that way, but it leads back to where our equipment is stored.” He paused thoughtfully before adding, “We will need to move with caution. We’ve not scouted that route beforehand.”

“I can scout it,” Miranza assured him. She tapped the stealth generator at her belt but didn't activate it.

“We move together or not at all.” Rekka spoke over her shoulder, still scanning the area around them for enemies. “Same formation as before.”

“Who died and made you queen?” Kaliyo asked her, eyeing the Mandalorian woman disdainfully.

“There’s a list,” Rekka replied. “It’s pretty long. I’ll show it to you sometime.” Barrazhat snickered, not even bothering to turn around to look at Kaliyo or his wife.

“Can we get on with this?” Theron demanded, making little effort to hide his annoyance. Normally he enjoyed a little light banter, but the sooner the six of them escaped the prison the sooner they could contact Micah and get the hell off Belsavis. His nerves were already shot from mustering up the courage to slice the control panel, and this new development was setting off warning bells inside his head. He kept hearing Elara Dorne’s words – _It’s a trap, Theron_ – and while he wasn’t certain he trusted the Havoc Squad medic, he _did_ trust his own gut instincts, and his gut was screaming at him that something was about to go horribly wrong.

“Nexu Two, position,” Rekka said with a curt nod that Miranza returned. Miranza flicked the switch on her stealth generator and disappeared from view, and the rest of them – sans Kaliyo, who was mostly just looking confused and annoyed – fell into formation again.

This route fed into a long hallway more than wide enough for the six of them to walk in a line, although they kept to their positions. Miranza scouted ahead, hidden under her stealth field, while Rekka and Barrazhat used the sensors on their helmets to search for other threats. All of them moved silently – an impressive feat, given that the two Mandalorians were in heavy armour, but they were remarkably soft-footed – weapons drawn, stretching outward with every sense they had to catch the trap before it sprung.

Rekka paused, one gauntled hand raised in a closed fist, and the rest of them stopped in their tracks. She motioned towards the walls on either side of them just up ahead, pointing at something Theron couldn’t see. Barrazhat nodded and peeled off from his position as rear-guard, moving towards the wall with his blaster pistol aimed down at the ground. Matching him step for step, Rekka did the same on either side of the hall, and Theron realized that the hunters’ sensors had detected something built into the stone walls of the prison.

“Nexu One.” Barrazhat gestured for Theron to join him. As he approached the wall Theron could pick out faint metallic filaments tucked away inside the stone; the threads were tiny and he would never have noticed them if the Pureblood hadn’t pointed them out.

“What is that?” Theron asked, stopping short of touching the thin wires.

“I was hoping you’d tell me,” Barrazhat replied, humour in his voice.

“Some kind of sensing equipment,” Rekka called from the opposite side of the hall. “I can’t tell if it’s been triggered or not, but it’s best to assume they’re on to us.”

“We think the blast doors closing might have been our first clue,” Vector mused, with just the faintest hint of gentle sarcasm.

“What do we do?” Kaliyo asked, shifting restlessly. Theron wouldn’t have gone so far as to say the Rattataki sounded fearful, but he definitely detected a note of concern in her voice. Normally Kaliyo could best be described as ‘insouciant,’ but no doubt discovering she was the bait in a Republic trap had put her on edge, and frankly he was glad to see her taking all of this seriously. Kaliyo Djannis was a loose cannon at the best of times, and this was definitely _not_ the best time for that.

“We press on,” Barrazhat said firmly. “We knew coming in that this was a trap. Between the six of us I reckon we can make the Pubs regret their life choices if they decide to come after us.”

While a part of Theron bristled at the implication that he wasn’t a Pub himself, another part of him was remembering his father’s take on things, and the fact that odds were quite good he was wanted for treason in Republic space. He certainly didn’t consider himself an Imperial but he’d thrown his lot in with Lana and her team, for good or for ill. He just hoped _he_ wasn’t the Pub who was going to wind up regretting his life choices when the shit hit the fan. He also hoped Barrazhat was wrong, and that if they did end up facing any more enemies it would just be more droids. Theron didn't want to hurt or kill Republic soldiers, men and women who likely had no clue what they were up against or who this trap was for. He would fight them if he had to, but they were still _his_ people, and he'd spent his entire life defending the Republic and its citizens.

“Keep an eye on those sensors, Four and Five,” Miranza said, still invisible. Her voice came out eerily disconnected and Theron found himself turning towards it, an uneasy chill sweeping over him as the realization that he couldn’t see her. “None of the rest of us can see them unless we’re right up against the wall.”

“Copy that, Two,” Rekka confirmed. After a brief pause – no doubt waiting until she could see Miranza moving forward again – Rekka pressed on and the rest of them followed.

They got no more than a few feet before Vector paused again, dark head cocked to one side. “Does anyone hear that?” Amidst a chorus of negatives he tilted his head to the other side, listening intently. “A humming sound, as of static. We think the sensors have been activated, but we cannot discern their purpose.”

“An alarm?” Miranza’s disembodied voice suggested from somewhere up ahead.

“Perhaps?” Vector sounded doubtful. He tightened his grip on his staff, the leatheris of his gloves creaking against the metal pole. “Be cautious, Be – _Two._ ” Although by now they were all practiced at referring to one another by their call-signs Vector’s worry was enough for him to almost slip into his nickname for Miranza, and when he caught himself he and Theron exchanged chagrined glances.

Moving forward at a snail’s pace, Theron did his best to stretch his own senses outward. His implants gave him a slight edge against normal, unaltered humans, but certainly nothing in the same category as the sensors that Rekka and Barrazhat had equipped in their visors, nor Vector’s heightened senses as a result of his Joining. Now that the Mandalorians had pointed out the filaments in the walls he was able to detect them himself, but he couldn’t hear the humming Vector had mentioned, and he was giving himself a headache by trying. He caught sight of Kaliyo and realized she looked every bit as high-strung and over-extended as he felt, and when she noticed him looking at her she didn’t even try to mask her concern with a snarky quip or sarcastic smile.

Something nagged at him, and it took Theron a second to realize it had been some time since they’d last encountered any droid patrols. In fact, they hadn’t come across any enemies since they had freed Kaliyo from her cell. The only thing that had happened had been the blast doors closing, blocking off their retreat - clearly herding them this way for a reason. By now they should have run into more droids; in fact, given that it was almost a certainty that their enemies were on to them, Theron would have expected to find themselves facing off against sentients. He opened his mouth to comment on it – and that was when all hell broke loose.

Theron couldn’t have said with any certainty what happened first, only that a jumble of things seemed to happen all at once. Barrazhat said “Shit!” at the same time that Vector let out a shout – of fear or of warning, Theron didn’t know. But before the last consonant of Barrazhat’s curse left his lips there was an audible click from up ahead and Theron saw the filaments on both sides of the hallway suddenly light up.

Brilliant bolts of what looked like vivid blue lightning shot forth from both sides of the wall up ahead, and where there had been no one Theron could suddenly see Miranza, back bowed in an impossible arch, both arms flung wide as she was struck. Then everything was too bright and he couldn’t see, but he could hear and stars what he heard was Miranza screaming in agony and –

“ _No!_ ”

– they were all frozen in place, too shocked and horrified to act. All save for Barrazhat, who suddenly charged forward, barreling into Miranza – or the blinding corona of light where she’d been – his arms out-flung as though to catch her around the waist.

When Barrazhat collided full-bore into Miranza there was a noise that sounded to Theron like a sonic boom. The screaming stopped and then –

_FWOOSH!!!_

– a shockwave slammed into Theron, propelling him off his feet and knocking him to the ground. The hallway was plunged into darkness and the only thing Theron heard over his own gasping breaths was Vector, calling out desperately to his wife in a voice that sounded like shattered glass.

Then, as Theron struggled onto his hands and knees, from further down the hall came the sound of heavily armed droids making their way towards them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ducks and hides*
> 
> "Rusty Cage" is by Soundgarden, although I personally prefer Johnny Cash's cover of it.


	10. Under Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rekka is a boss, Theron is in denial, and Barrazhat takes one for the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Medical drama and implied alcoholism

_**Belsavis, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Rekka was already on her feet and moving by the time Theron’s vision cleared, and as soon as she saw that everyone else seemed paralyzed she started bellowing orders.

“One and Six” – Rekka jabbed a hand in Kaliyo’s direction to be certain the Rattataki knew she was referring to her – “clear the perimeter, then check Five, make sure the _di’kut_ hasn’t gotten himself killed.” Her voice sounded remarkably calm, considering the last thing Theron had seen might have been Barrazhat being killed. “Three, guard my _shebs._ ” When no one moved Rekka ripped off her helmet, slammed it down on the ground and snarled, “ _Move it!_ ”

Theron didn’t wait for her to tell him again – he pushed himself to his feet, blaster in hand, and moved further down the hall, past Miranza’s crumpled form, past Barrazhat, towards the sound of droids. He wanted to stop, wanted to check Miranza to see if she was still alive, to see how bad the damage was, but he understood from Rekka’s tone and directions that the Mandalorian intended to handle that, and that his job in this was to make sure she didn’t come under fire while she was working. Kaliyo, likewise snapped out of her stunned inaction, kept pace with Theron, his loaned blaster pistol out in her two-handed grip and raised towards the oncoming threat. Behind them, his face a careful mask, Vector took up a defensive stance over Rekka as she dropped to her knees beside Miranza.

 _Don’t think,_ Theron told himself, willing his mind to empty as he saw the first of the droids round the corner. _Just act._

He wasn’t used to fighting alongside Kaliyo but it didn’t matter. The moment the droids rounded the corner the two of them were firing in unison as though they’d trained and worked together for years. Kaliyo aimed high; Theron dropped to one knee and aimed low. Forcing himself to ignore whatever Rekka was doing behind him, Theron fell into a state of automation: target, shoot, duck, target, shoot, duck … His movements were precise, focused.

 _There is no emotion,_ he thought, finishing off a droid that Kaliyo had disabled for him. _There is peace._

_Like fucking hell there is._

For all that he was Force blind Theron had been raised on the Jedi Code. Some of his earliest memories were of sitting, cross-legged, while Master Zho recited the Code to him: _There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force._ He knew the words off by heart and sometimes – such as now – when the anger and the fear threatened to overwhelm him he dredged the memories up and tried to use them to focus, tried to use them to help him push past whatever he was feeling in order to get the job done. Sometimes it helped: meditation, as much as his implants, had served to get him through the Revanites’ torture on Rishi. Sometimes, though – again, such as now – the Code felt absolutely meaningless to him, and the only thing holding him together was the knowledge that he, Kaliyo and Vector needed to keep the droids at bay so that Rekka could work.

Failure was simply _not_ an option.

Target. Shoot. Duck. Target. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Duck.

Target.

Shoot.

The last droid collapsed in a groaning, sparking heap of scrap metal. Ignoring years of training and instinct Theron turned his back on it, leaving it to Kaliyo to ensure the mech was destroyed while he hurried to Barrazhat’s side. He wanted to go to Miranza, but Rekka’s orders had been very clear and he knew the bounty hunter would never forgive him if he turned his back on her downed partner.

Barrazhat lay crumpled on his side against the wall, his matte-black armour scratched and dinged. He was very still and at first Theron feared the worst, but as he approached the Pureblood he was able to discern the slight rise and fall of his chest. Theron dropped to his knees beside him, ignoring the impact of stone against kneecaps and the aches and pains that warned him he’d been tagged during that firefight. It took him a few desperate seconds to find the catches locking Barrazhat’s helmet into place, but once he sorted it out – and forced his hands to stop shaking – Theron was able to pull the helmet free. Long, deep auburn hair tumbled loose, individual strands plastering themselves to Barrazhat’s red-skinned face, and Theron could see marks on Barrazhat’s forehead and chin from where the inner headpiece had pressed in. Stripping off his leatheris gloves Theron pressed two fingers to the pulse in Barrazhat’s neck, relieved to find it strong and steady. The Pureblood let out a low groan, orange-yellow eyes fluttering open briefly before closing again.

“He alive?” Kaliyo, blaster pistol still raised as she moved backwards away from the defeated droids, barely glanced at Theron over her shoulder as she approached.

“Yeah,” Theron replied. Kaliyo knelt beside him, shoving his loaned blaster into the waistband of her pants – prison-issue trousers in a drab grey – and brushing his hands away from where he was trying to unfasten Barrazhat’s chest-piece. Theron looked at her, confused, and was surprised by the compassion he found in her bright silver eyes. She jerked her chin in Miranza’s direction, giving him a meaningful look.

Theron didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed back to his feet and made his way towards Rekka, Miranza and Vector.

The Joiner stood slightly separate from his wife and the Mandalorian, leaning heavily on his electrostaff as he fought to catch his breath. There was a smaller assortment of busted droids circling him; Theron knew none had gotten past him and Kaliyo, so these assailants must have come from another direction. Aside from obvious exhaustion and a small bloodied scratch on his cheek Vector appeared none the worse for wear, his gaze fixed on the two women at his feet.

Rekka – helmet and gauntlets removed – crouched over Miranza, hands pressed to the unconscious woman’s chest, pushing down in a rapid, steady beat. For a brief instant Theron’s mind refused to process what he was seeing, and it wasn’t until Rekka pinched Miranza’s nose and bent her face towards hers that his brain caught up with the situation. Rekka breathed into Miranza, Miranza’s chest rose and fell and then stopped again, at which point the Mandalorian resumed chest compressions.

“Come _on,_ you stubborn bitch,” Rekka muttered, the words snapping out in time to her actions.

Theron might have stood there forever, frozen by shock and confusion, were it not for the sudden approach of yet more droids. This time around he and Vector worked in tandem, leaping into action with the ease and practice of long-time partnership. By the time their fight was over Rekka was tearing through the large medkit that Barrazhat had been lugging around, tossing out bandages, splints and other medical accoutrements as she searched through the kit. Having finally found what she was looking for the Mandalorian let out a triumphant shout and, peeling the small device free of its sterile packaging, hurried back to Miranza’s side. To Theron the device looked like nothing so much as a meat thermometer: a boxy electronic gadget with a gleaming metal spike on one end.

“Three.” When Vector didn’t acknowledge her Rekka tried again, somehow managing to combine both impatience and compassion into her voice: “Vector. Come here and help me with this.”

Shaken out of his daze Vector obediently knelt down beside her, his all-black eyes fixed on her face as if Rekka was the only thing keeping him together. The Mandalorian lifted the device up and pointed to the spiked end, then pointed to a spot on Miranza’s chest, just slightly left of centre. Vector’s eyes widened as he began to grasp what she was trying to tell him.

“You need to jab it in hard,” she was saying, her voice sounding strangely far-away to Theron. There was a faint buzzing in his ears that made it hard for him to hear. “Not too hard – you don’t want to stab the ground, just enough to get it past the sternum.”

“You cannot be serious,” Vector said, eyes somehow growing wider. “We – _I_ … I can’t do that – ”

“Vector.” Rekka pushed the device into the Joiner’s hands. “I need you to do this. It’s basically a pacemaker, it’ll regulate her heartrate until we can get her to a medical facility, but I can’t do it. My arms are jelly, I don’t have the strength right now, and – ”

“I’ll do it,” Theron interrupted, dropping down to his knees beside her. He took the device from Vector, careful to keep his hands well away from the spike – now that he understood where the sterilized metal was expected to go – and swallowed heavily. “Just … Just show me where, exactly.”

Rekka nodded and pointed again to the same spot on Miranza’s chest. Vector made a small sound that wasn’t quite a whimper and wasn’t quite a groan, and pushed himself to his feet, backing away with a sick look on his face. Theron forced himself not to think about what he was doing and instead focused on the mechanics of it: his gaze directed towards the patch of bruised, reddened skin Rekka had shown him, his hands steady, the device both impossibly heavy and incredibly light in his grasp. Drawing in a deep breath Theron raised his hands and with one swift motion stabbed the spike into Miranza’s chest. There was no way to ignore the sickening crunch of the metal piercing solid bone, no way he could fail to see the bright red blood that welled up around the fresh wound. Bile rose up in Theron’s throat and he barely managed to stagger away in time to throw up a few feet away from Miranza’s outstretched hand.

A heavy hand fell onto his shoulder, squeezing tightly, and Vector helped Theron back to his feet. The Joiner’s face was pale and there was no mistaking the guilt written there. “Thank you. We … I … just could not …”

“Believe me,” Theron said, giving Vector’s hand a squeeze, “I know.”

Rekka was fitting a mask over Miranza’s mouth and nose when the two men returned to her side, adjusting the straps carefully so as to avoid snagging on the unconscious woman’s curly hair. She connected the mask to the pacemaker device lodged in Miranza’s chest, then began fiddling with some of the settings on the pacemaker, keying through a selection of options before settling on what was needed. Just as she was wrapping things up – the rest of Miranza’s injuries didn’t appear to be life-threatening and they needed to get the hell out of there – Kaliyo half-dragged, half-carried a semi-conscious Barrazhat over to join them.

“Will she live?” The Pureblood’s voice was slurred, and he was leaning heavily against the Rattataki.

“I don’t know,” Rekka replied, with an apologetic glance in Vector and Theron’s direction. “Maybe. But we need to get out of here or we’re all dead.”

Vector, having regained his composure somewhat, took Kaliyo’s place and had Barrazhat settle his arm over his shoulders. For all that the bounty hunter was considerably taller and heavier than the Joiner Vector didn’t appear to have any difficulties keeping him upright. Vector then looked down at his wife, his face going carefully expressionless again, then back up at Rekka.

“Is it safe to move her?” he asked, tone suggesting he already knew the answer.

“It isn’t safe not to,” Rekka replied, and Vector nodded, her response confirming what they all knew. Miranza was in rough shape and the less jostling she suffered, the better – but there was no way to get out of the prison without moving her, and they couldn’t stay where they were. While they had only been attacked by droids thus far Theron felt there was a strong chance that Republic soldiers – possibly hand-picked by his father – would be on the way.

“Kaliyo, return Theron’s pistol and carry Miranza,” Vector ordered. When Kaliyo opened her mouth to object he fixed her with a hard look, and while he didn’t raise his voice there was steel in his tone: “ _Do it._ Rekka and Theron are the better fighters, and we - _I_ \- will assist Barrazhat. We can carry him, if need be.”

“I’m fine,” Barrazhat protested, even as he swayed against Vector’s lean frame. Vector didn’t even budge in spite of the weight sagging against him.

“Yes, _clearly,_ ” Vector retorted, making no effort to mask his sarcasm. “Theron, contact Micah and let him know we are en route.”

“How are we going to get back down?” Theron asked, although he was already pulling out his comm to make the call. “We don’t have the gear to carry anyone down the side of a mountain!”

Vector met Theron’s worried gaze. “How accomplished of a pilot would you say Micah is?”

O o O o O

_“If you don’t find some way to avoid this turbulence I will come up there and throw you through the windshield!”_

Theron winced as Barrazhat’s angry bellow echoed throughout Micah’s ship, his ears ringing too loudly to catch Micah’s reply, save that he was fairly confident it was neither polite nor in Basic. He didn’t need to hear the frustration in either man’s voice to know things were bad, just as he knew Micah was doing the best that he could to ensure the freighter flew straight and even. It wasn’t as though the pilot was deliberately trying to throw everyone off-kilter.

Micah had already impressed them by bringing the ship in close enough to the mountain-side entrance for them to be able to – cautiously – climb from the narrow ledge over to the freighter’s gangway. The maneuver had been difficult: while Theron, Kaliyo, Vector and Rekka were all able-bodied, Barrazhat was still stunned from his attempt to save Miranza, and Miranza herself was still unconscious. In the end Rekka – with the aid of the jet-boots built into her armour, which were only good for short bursts – roped across with Barrazhat, using her boots to propel her along, while Vector had swung across with Miranza tied to his back. It was far from an ideal situation – Miranza needed to be on a backboard, not draped over Vector like a fur stole, and the cold winds buffeting them ensured that Theron spent the entire trip feeling as though his balls were trying to creep up inside his body – but thanks to some fancy flying courtesy of Micah and an assist from the little astromech droid that had belonged to his brother Caedan, the six of them were able to get on board the freighter more or less in one piece.

Now, tired and cold and brimming over with fear and worry, they were all in each other’s pockets as Micah piloted them to safety elsewhere on Belsavis. Rekka had been able to get Miranza stabilized, but she held out little hope that the woman would survive transit off-world, much less the lengthy journey it would take to get them anywhere more hospitable. Things might have been less grim if the freighter had a kolto tank on board, but the tiny medbay had been completely taken over with storage and if there was a tank somewhere behind the crates and boxes it was sure to be empty.

Instead of in the medbay where she should have been, Miranza was laid out on the table in the galley, both Vector and Theron hovering anxiously while Rekka did her best to deal with the damage. Kaliyo, having overseen Barrazhat’s first aid, had gone to shower (sonic only, but she would have been content with sterile wet-wipes and a napkin if it meant she could get the stink of the prisons off of her skin), and Barrazhat was slumped over in the booth, a mug of tea clutched between his freshly-bandaged hands. Micah and Teeseven – Caedan’s astromech, apparently – were up on the bridge. Micah had had a suggestion about where they could take Miranza: a friend of his brother’s ( _creche-mate,_ Micah had said, which Theron knew meant _fellow Jedi_ ) was on Belsavis; she wasn’t the sort of person who would turn away someone in need, and Micah assured the team that she also wasn’t the sort of Jedi who would be overly concerned by the fact that Miranza (and the rest of them, too) was likely wanted by Republic authorities.

 _“What’s she doing on Belsavis?”_ Barrazhat had asked, when Micah first brought her up.

Micah had shrugged. _“She’s trying to start up a makeshift school, to educate the prisoners’ children.”_

Vector, predictably, had been horrified: _“There are children on Belsavis?”_

Theron, who knew Belsavis’s sordid history better than most, had simply echoed Micah’s shrug. _“Yeah. There are.”_ Imprisonment on Belsavis was – typically – for life, and with the exception of Kaliyo who had been used as bait, most of the prisoners were free to roam within their respective zones. Prisoners met, fell in love, and had children – or they met, fucked, and nine months later a baby popped out, same as all the galaxy over. The children were innocent, of course, but there were no structures in place to get them off of Belsavis, and growing up surrounded by the galaxy’s worst criminals their futures were incredibly bleak. It was simply one of those things that was swept under the rug when the topic of Belsavis was addressed, because it wasn’t a problem anyone knew how to solve (outside of “stop imprisoning criminals on Belsavis,” which wasn’t going to happen any time soon).

Apparently this Jedi, a Mirialan woman by the name of Oriana Zarasa, had formerly served on the Jedi Council and had spent the bulk of her early career as a diplomat before retiring to Belsavis. Theron didn’t know much about her beyond that, save for the realization that if she and Caedan Savarr had been creche-mates and Padawans together he might have trained with them if he hadn’t been drummed out of the Order. It confounded Theron how it seemed like the children he would have grown up with had all somehow gone on to become important figures in the galaxy – Caedan as the Hero of Tython and now the Outlander, Oriana as the Bar’senthor (whatever _that_ fancy title meant) – and meanwhile there he was, just plain old Theron Shan, a washed-up nobody working with a bunch of misfits to try and save the galaxy. Not for the first time Theron wondered how different his life would have been had he shown aptitude for the Force.

Barrazhat and Kaliyo both had some strong reservations about handing Miranza over to a Jedi for even life-saving medical care. Rekka wasn’t thrilled by the idea but, having assumed the role of first responder, wanted what was best for Miranza; that, and she had a better idea than the others as to what Miranza’s odds of survival were without the Jedi’s intervention. Vector’s only objection had been that Miranza herself wouldn’t be comfortable with it but were their roles reversed he knew she would do whatever it took to keep him alive – even if that meant leaving him in the care of an unknown Jedi. Theron’s feelings on the matter were … conflicted, to say the least. Like Vector, however, he was willing to do whatever it took, and if Master Zarasa was Miranza’s best chance then he could put all misgivings aside if it meant keeping her alive.

Beside, Vector and Theron had no intentions of leaving Miranza alone with Oriana Zarasa, no matter how highly respected the Mirialan was.

But in order to get Miranza to Oriana Zarasa, first she had to survive the journey.

Rekka had been very clear that the pacemaker/respirator was only a temporary measure, a stopgap to prevent Miranza from going into cardiac arrest. ( _Again_ was the unspoken addition to that sentence. It had already happened once, on the cold stone floors of the prison.) The medical device wasn’t intended for long-term use; its purpose was solely to ensure the patient survived long enough to get them to a med centre and proper medical care. Between the cautious run through the prison – interrupted multiple times by more droids – and the lengthy, nail-biting journey from the cliff ledge into the freighter, the battery was already more than half-drained and there were no replacements. If the pacemaker died … if it died and Miranza’s heart stopped again …

Nails biting into palms, Theron shoved that thought away. He’d given up on reciting the Jedi Code a long time ago. It wasn’t helping. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was still technically on-duty – and if it weren’t for Vector’s watchful gaze – he would’ve been halfway through a bottle of whiskey by now.

The freighter took another sharp turn and Theron nearly crashed into the table, catching himself on the edge just before he knocked into Miranza. Rekka shot him a dirty look, but before he could frame an apology a large bandaged hand clamped down on Theron’s wrist and Barrazhat hauled him into the booth.

“Sit,” the Pureblood grunted, releasing Theron. “You’re getting in the way.”

Theron bit down on a number of retorts and slumped down beside the bounty hunter, his gaze still fixed on the action taking place in the middle of the galley. Vector was doing his best to assist Rekka, but his movements were stiff and robotic, a sure sign that the Joiner was trying very hard not to think about what he was doing, but was instead focusing on simply _doing_ it. Theron understood, having been there before himself on many occasions. Rekka seemed aware of the Joiner’s mental state and was careful to be extremely clear and explicit in her instructions: _Use this ointment, there, like that, on her palms. Good. Wrap this gauze around it, tight but not too tight. Yes, just like that. Well done._ For all that she was typically brash and impatient, the Mandalorian was obviously conscious of how tenuously both Vector and Theron were holding on, and while she normally would have snapped at both of them dozens of times before now instead she was very careful to treat them with kid gloves. Even the dirty look she’d shot Theron moments ago was a pale shadow of her usual steel-eyed glare.

Rekka being nice: as good an indication as anything that things were not going well.

Something heavy and metallic clunked onto the table in front of Theron, startling him out of his morose thoughts. Blinking, he stared blearily at the hunk of charred and twisted metal before him; it was so misshapen that it took him a few seconds to recognize it as having been connected to the strange filaments in the prison walls.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking up to see Kaliyo staring down at him. He hadn’t noticed her exiting the ‘fresher, but now that she was right in front of him he could detect the soap she’d used in the shower. She was clearly wearing borrowed clothes: a too-big T-shirt and pants that likely belonged to Rekka, who was both much taller and much more muscular than the Rattataki.

“This” – Kaliyo clinked a fingernail against the metal casing, sending it skidding across the table until it almost bumped up against Barrazhat’s empty mug – “is a genetic tracker. I’ll bet you my favourite blaster rifle that it’s what triggered that electrical trap. Somehow it was keyed to Agent, and when she got to a certain point … _BAM!_ ” She slammed both hands down on the table, making Theron jump and earning herself a startled cry from Vector. “Or zap, I guess.”

Barrazhat scowled at her and pulled his mug away from the offending bit of tech. “And how was it keyed into Miranza, then? I’m rather certain she doesn’t make a habit of leaving genetic material lying around all over the place.”

“She does not,” Vector said thoughtfully, going back to winding a length of gauze around Miranza’s right hand. She had electrical burns on her hands and feet, and more burns down the base of her spine. The ones on her back were worse – deeper and broader – than those on her hands, but all the burns needed to cleaned and bandaged to prevent infection, and the ones on her extremities were easier for Vector to treat.

“No,” Theron agreed, “she doesn’t, but …” Sudden realization struck him, and he dropped his head into his hands. “Son of a _bitch!_ ”

“What?” Kaliyo was eyeing him warily, as if he’d suddenly grown a second head.

“Alderaan.” He looked at Vector, not at Kaliyo, and saw the same comprehension dawn on the Joiner’s face. Miranza had spent time in Republic custody on Alderaan – in fact, she had been under the medical care of Lieutenant Elara Dorne and her husband, Major Aethan Tigano. Both members of Havoc Squad. Both soldiers under Jace Malcom’s command. And Miranza had been in no condition to prevent them from collecting whatever genetic samples they wanted: blood, tissue samples, bone – stars, for all Theron knew they could’ve clipped her fingernails and trimmed her hair, and she wouldn’t have been able to stop them. They’d known who she was and what she’d done in her service to the Sith Empire; it would have made sense to keep some sort of data on file about her. Why _not_ include a genetic profile?

“Alderaan,” Vector agreed, sounding grim.

Once again Barrazhat reached out and latched onto Theron’s wrist, the serious expression on his red-skinned face pulling the cross-shaped scar taut. “ _Theron._ That trap – that was not meant to incapacitate. That was meant to kill.”

“No.” Theron shook his head, disbelieving, and tried to pull his wrist free. Barrazhat’s fingers squeezed tighter. “No, Dorne said the plan was to take her prisoner, not to kill her – he wouldn’t, he knows that I love her, he – _No._ ”

“Yes,” Barrazhat insisted, releasing him again. He set both hands on the table and turned them over, palms up, the white bandages a stark contrast against his vibrant skin. “I’ve good cause to know.” When Theron continued to shake his head in denial Barrazhat leaned across the table and caught hold of his chin with one hand, forcing him to turn his head towards where Miranza lay, Rekka working over her. “Does _that_ look non-lethal to you, _vod_?”

As if to bring the situation home to Theron – as if he wasn’t already fully aware of how critical things were – Rekka’s head suddenly snapped up, and she looked at her husband. Her face – a slightly darker tone than Theron’s own – looked set in stone, but Theron thought he could see fear and desperation in her steel-grey eyes.

“Barrazhat, _riduur_ – I need you.”

Hands falling to the table, Barrazhat sank back in the booth and shook his head. “No. Rekka –”

“Dammit, Barrazhat, she’s going to –” As if to punctuate Rekka’s statement an alarm started blaring; Theron wasn’t familiar with it, but he guessed it was the low-battery warning on the pacemaker. Rekka swore again, a lengthy and heartfelt tirade that mingled Basic and Mando’a with a heaping dose of Huttese and several other languages Theron didn’t recognize. At least one of the words caused Barrazhat to flinch, visibly, and with an angry look at his wife the Pureblood shoved himself up out of the booth and came to stand at the table, at Miranza’s head. Giving Rekka another fierce glare he gently placed his hands on Miranza’s face, cupping his fingers around the curve of her jaw.

“Wait, what’s he doing?” Theron murmured, climbing up out of the booth. “He’s not – ”

“I’m _not,_ ” Barrazhat snapped through clenched teeth, hooking his foot around the leg of a nearby stool and dragging it over so that he could sit on it – all without taking his hands off of Miranza. He sat, then bent his head, his eyes fixed on Miranza’s face. When he spoke again his voice still sounded angry – in fact, he sounded _furious_ – but he was softer, practically whispering: “I’m not a Sith and I’m not a Jedi. I have _no_ training and barely enough power to get myself sent to Korriban, and if your kriffing friend doesn’t get us to that Force-be-damned _jetii_ soon you’re going to have two bodies on your hands instead of one.”

Then Barrazhat’s eyes closed, and his hands began to glow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Under Pressure" is, of course, by Queen and David Bowie. (As an aside, you can use "Another One Bites the Dust" to time out the chest compressions for CPR; you can also use the BeeGees "Stayin' Alive.") That frantic pace helped set the mood while I wrote a chapter filled with people who are freaking the hell out.
> 
> Oh, and I am so _not_ a doctor. While pacemakers exist in the real world, the one Rekka is using is not real and you should probably never stab anything into your loved one's sternum.
> 
> Mando'a:  
>  _Di'kut_ : idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)  
>  _Shebs_ : backside, rear, buttocks  
>  _Vod_ : mate/comrade, brother/sister  
>  _Riduur_ : partner, spouse, husband, wife  
>  _Jetii_ : Jedi


	11. Precious and Fragile Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for torture, self-harm, implied/referenced unwanted sexual contact. Skip the italicized segments if these things might hurt you.

_**Somewhere, Some When** _

_The setting was nothing new to her: a refrigerated storage facility, slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling, attached to tenterhooks; her breath, puffing out into little clouds in the air; cold and darkness and pain. She remembered all of this: bound to a heavy metal chair, thick ropes strapping her wrists and ankles in place._

_Her left hand was free. That was new, that was different._

_Also different: the man who smiled down at her, his green eyes shining with malevolence, his strawberry blond hair just slightly out of place as though he’d been in the midst of exertion. Her memories told her that it should be a different man, one who was taller, who had dark hair and a goatee and dressed himself in the clothes of an Alderaanian nobleman. For a brief moment the blond man’s face shifted, softening, hard angles giving way to curves, revealing the woman underneath. Then it shifted back, and his smile broadened as he handed her the scalpel._

_“Keyword: onomatophobia,” the blond man said, still smiling. “Flay the skin off your right hand.”_

_Her movements were mechanical, automatic. She lifted her left hand, wanting nothing more than to jab the scalpel into his guts, and slowly drew the sharp blade across the back of her right hand. She saw blood before she felt pain but she couldn’t stop herself: she lifted the blade again and made another deep cut._

No. This wasn’t how it happened. Hunter had been a sadist, but he had never used her keyword for –

_The smiling face shifted again, the strawberry blond hair darkening to auburn, the green eyes deepening to brown. Hunter’s cruel smile morphed into Samar’s lazy smirk, and he took the scalpel from her shaking fingers._

_“Here, let me help you,” he said, flipping her bloodied hand over so that he could start on her palm. When she opened her mouth in a scream he put his free hand to her lips, murmuring “Shh” and driving the blade through her hand until the metal tip struck the arm of the chair._

No. It hadn’t been Samar, he hadn’t done this, this wasn’t what happened –

_Another shift, and this time the face was correct: dark hair and goatee, bright blue eyes, clothes in the cut and colours of a noble of House Ulgo. He left the scalpel where it was, sticking straight up through her palm like some kind of flag or marker, and grabbed her by her ponytail, twisting his fingers through her hair. Alric Ulgo wrenched her head back and kissed her, hard, biting her lower lip until she could taste blood. When he finally released her it was only so that he could reach down and begin unfastening his pants and –_

That wasn’t how this went.

She was dreaming, that’s all this was, all it could be.

_When the shift happened again it was Theron’s face before her, but his eyes weren’t his eyes. Instead they were hard and dark and cruel, and her blood was on his lips, on his hands, and he was smiling and pulling the scalpel free so that he could bring it down on her again. Behind him, wearing Samar’s clothes – the clothes he’d worn on the day she had killed him, his blood staining them, his throat slashed open – was Vector, and in spite of the gaping wound in his throat he, like Theron, was smiling._

_“Keyword: Atychiphobia,” Vector said, in a voice that sounded like nails scraping across a chalkboard. “Bring us her heart, love.”_

_Theron flipped the scalpel in his hand, adjusting his grip, then raised it over his head. The last thing she felt was the blade driving home in her chest._

O o O o O

__  
**Belsavis, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion**  


Theron jerked awake, the sound of metal splintering through bone echoing in his ears. Reaching out he found the other side of the bed empty and cool, and his worries that he might have woken Vector were replaced by worries that the Joiner hadn’t slept at all. Theron had barely slept himself but he had no memory of Vector coming to bed, and he didn’t know if that was because he had somehow managed to sleep through it or because Vector had decided to sleep elsewhere.

Pushing himself into a sitting position Theron ran his hands over his sweat-soaked hair and tried to ignore the way his skin felt sticky and how much the sensation reminded him of the feel of blood on his hands. He knew blood didn’t feel the same as sweat; he knew, also, that his hands were not bloody. Not literally, anyway. Figuratively …

She hadn’t bled at all when the pacemaker had gone in.

He could still feel it, the crunch of metal against bone, the sudden and unexpected give as the spike went through, the nausea that had immediately arisen at what he had just done.

Theron swallowed heavily and, despite the fact that he could see it was still dark outside, with only the faintest hint of dawn’s rays brightening the canvas tent, pushed himself out of bed. He had no idea what time it was but he knew he wasn’t going to be sleeping any more that night. Shoving his feet into his boots Theron scrabbled on hands and knees out of the tent, ducking back inside briefly to grab his jacket. The Jedi’s tiny cottage was in a warmer zone on Belsavis but the night (early morning?) air was bitterly cold and he could see his breath.

Torn between trying to find Vector and going to sit with Miranza, Theron was saved from having to make an immediate choice by a pressing need to use the ‘fresher. Tugging his jacket closed but not bothering to fasten it, he made his way towards the cottage, his path lit only by the lingering stars and the faintest traces of morning sunlight.

Oriana Zarasa and her little family – and _that_ had been one hell of a shock for Theron – lived in a small, neatly-kept cottage on the edge of a lake near one of the prisoner recreation zones. It was just her, her husband, and a large Trandoshan who seemed two parts bodyguard to one part doting uncle, along with Oriana and Felix’s two small children. Theron had not been expecting anything nearly so idyllic as this snug cottage and the Jedi’s family, not on a planet like Belsavis. When Kaliyo – likewise unable to contain her surprise – had caustically asked how Oriana planned to keep her kids safe when they were surrounded by prisoners, the Jedi had simply smiled. It wasn’t until sometime later that Theron noticed the droids patrolling the area, but there was more to it than that. Oriana had come to Belsavis to do good, and the prisoners were grateful for it. Nobody messed with her or her family, and the droids and the Trandoshan bodyguard were just added security.

The cottage was open, the door unlocked. Micah and Teeseven had opted to remain on board the freighter, since Oriana’s home was far too small to accommodate all of them. Kaliyo had chosen to join them on the ship, as far away from the Jedi's two small children as she could possibly manage without actually leaving the perimeter of the cottage. Vector and Theron were sleeping outside in a tent for the same reason. Barrazhat, exhausted and weakened from his efforts to sustain Miranza through the Force, was given the nursery to sleep in while Oriana’s two small children slept in their parents’ bedroom, and Rekka made do sleeping on the floor beside him. (Barrazhat barely fit onto the older child’s bed, which had been designed to accommodate a four-year-old, not an overly large Pureblood. He had simply been too worn out from his exertions to do much more than collapse onto the bed, scarcely even noticing the way his limbs dangled over the sides.) Felix and Theron had dragged an old wooden tub into the main room, near the fireplace, for Oriana to fill with a mixture of kolto and warm water, and Miranza was propped up in it. There was no kolto tank, so the bath was the best they could do. Oriana had already spent several hours using the Force to treat the worst of Miranza’s injuries, and at least the immediate threat to her life had passed.

Theron made his way on silent feet towards the ‘fresher, hesitating only briefly when he saw the light on in the main room. Necessities attended to, he was about to head back outside – having decided to search for Vector to make sure the Joiner was all right – when a soft voice called to him and he found himself heading in its direction. He froze in the doorway of the main room, momentarily discomfited by the sight of Oriana sitting in a rocking chair by the fire, her youngest child at her breast. It wasn’t that Theron was particularly bothered by the idea of breast-feeding – it was, after all, only natural; the kid had to eat somehow and this was Oriana's house – but it wasn’t something he’d come across before, and he didn’t know the etiquette for it.

“You can sit with us, if you’d like.” Oriana’s voice, pitched low so as to avoid waking her sleeping infant, was gentle and faintly musical, and she had the same measured cadences Theron remembered from other Jedi he had known. “You seem troubled.”

Moving towards the tub and the unconscious woman inside of it, Theron looked down at Miranza, using the sight of her to cover for his obvious embarrassment at interrupting a private moment. Miranza was a small woman: short, slender, fine-boned. Laid out in the tub as she was she seemed smaller still, like one of the glass animal figurines noblewomen on Alderaan liked to collect – like even the lightest push would cause her to shatter and fracture. She’d been stripped down to her underthings, the kolto-laden water providing her with some modesty (not that Miranza had ever been the slightest bit modest in all the time Theron had known her), and Theron could see the thick white bandages that covered her hands, her feet and most of her midsection. Another bandage was taped over the wound on her chest, where Theron had inserted the pacemaker; Oriana and Rekka had removed the device shortly after their arrival.

“Hard not to be troubled,” Theron replied, staring down at Miranza. He pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and set it beside the tub so that he could sit beside her, then took her bandaged hand in his own. Her skin felt cool and slightly damp.

Oriana made a noncommittal sound and shifted the baby at her breast. Her youngest – a dark-haired, green-skinned little girl with her father’s dark brown eyes – was only a few months old. The older child was a boy of about four, almost painfully shy but incredibly inquisitive. The Trandoshan – Qyzen, his name was – had taken the boy with him when Theron and the others had shown up, in order to keep him out of the way while Oriana worked to save Miranza. They had only returned after Miranza and Barrazhat were settled and resting peacefully, and the little boy had been too shy and too well-behaved to get underfoot.

“So, you, Vector and Miranza are …?” Oriana’s tone was curious and completely without judgement.

“Yes,” Theron answered, nodding, gaze still on Miranza. He glanced over at the Jedi and saw her smiling back sympathetically. Aside from the serenity she carried about her, Oriana wasn’t much like the other Jedi Theron had known. A short, slightly plump Mirialan woman with blue-grey eyes and jet-black hair, she didn’t look at all like a fighter, and with her husband and family the apparent focus of her life she certainly didn’t live the way Theron expected Jedi to live. His own mother …

Well, suffice to say, Satele had made different choices than Oriana had.

“I imagine that must take a great deal of compromise,” Oriana said, running a hand over her daughter’s head. She gave Theron a rueful smile. “Making an intimate relationship work when you’ve only to consider the needs of one other person is hard enough. I’m not certain I could juggle two lovers.”

Stroking his thumb over the back of Miranza’s hand, Theron shrugged lightly. “We don’t have kids to worry about. That probably makes it easier.”

“You don’t want children?”

Bracing himself for the expected lecture on the joys of parenting and how his life just won’t feel complete until he’s spawned the prerequisite number of offspring Theron shook his head and said, curtly, “No.” He was grateful for what Oriana had done to save Miranza, but he didn’t feel that his gratitude meant he owed it to the Jedi to explain why he, Vector and Miranza didn’t have any children. It was a combination of lack of desire on his part (lack of desire, and a fear of making all the same kriffing mistakes his own parents had made), a lack of capability on Vector’s (as Joiners were created through pheromonic bonding, there was no need for them to reproduce sexually, and as a consequence the physiological changes Vector had undergone had rendered him sterile), and a lack of both on Miranza’s. While it would certainly have been possible for the three of them to adopt – and Force knew, there were plenty of orphans across the galaxy – neither Theron nor Miranza were interested in being parents, and Vector’s own desire wasn’t strong enough to be an issue. Besides, it wasn’t as though their lives were conducive to child-rearing, and shacking up in a cottage in splendid isolation somewhere wasn’t their style.

The lecture wasn’t forthcoming. Oriana simply nodded and smiled again, and Theron relaxed minutely, relieved that she didn't seem inclined to push.

“I didn’t think Jedi could …” Theron gestured around aimlessly, indicating the cabin, the baby, all of it. “Y’know, do this. Get married, have kids, that sort of thing.”

“The Jedi Code frowns on attachment, yes.” Oriana smiled at her daughter again, running a fingertip along the little girl's brow. “And I am very, _very_ attached. That’s part of the reason I stepped down from the Council, and why Felix and I came out here to Belsavis. I wanted to help, of course, and educating the children of prisoners seems like a worthy task, but … I also just wanted _this._ My husband, my children, and little likelihood that I would ever be called upon to place the galaxy ahead of them.”

Theron was silent, chewing on his lower lip as he considered her words. He wondered what his life would have been like if his mother had made a similar choice, instead of giving him to her old mentor to raise. Thinking of his mother made Theron think of his father, and that in turn made him remember what Jace had done and how close he had come – how close he might still come – to losing Miranza as a result. He didn't want to think about that, didn't want to consider any of it - _what the kriff had Jace been thinking?!?_ \- and yet there was no avoiding the issue, not really, not when Miranza was lying helpless and unconscious in a kolto bath, alive solely through the grace of their Jedi hostess and the intervention of one rather grumpy untrained Pureblood Force-sensitive.

“I remember you, you know,” Oriana said after a moment’s silence. He startled, looking over at her, and she clarified, “I remember you on Tython. You must have been about fourteen, fifteen?”

“Thirteen,” Theron corrected softly. An old hurt, familiar and blunted with time, settled in him at the memories. “I was thirteen.”

“Much older and more worldly than a girl of ten,” Oriana replied, a cheeky smile on her face. “You weren’t there very long – we were never told why, of course, but there were rumours – but you were the target of more than a few crushes in the creche. Myself included.”

Chuckling darkly, Theron ignored the way his cheeks flushed and instead focused on Miranza, muttering, “You would have been disappointed.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” When Theron glanced up at her again Oriana switched her daughter over to her other arm and rotated her now-free shoulder, grimacing slightly. At Theron’s confused look she jerked her chin in Miranza’s direction, asking, “Is she a stupid woman? Does she have low standards?”

“I – no, of course not.” Offended, Theron shook his head. “She’s brilliant. And Vector is – ”

“Vector strikes me as a smart man,” Oriana continued, talking over him relentlessly. “A smart man with excellent taste. Logically, then, if both Miranza and Vector are intelligent, and if they both have high standards … what must that say about you, that they love you and you love them?” Standing up and moving over to the small cradle near the door to the bedroom she shared with her husband, the Mirialan settled her daughter down and then returned to sit by the fire, giving Theron a fierce look. “I understand if you can’t be kind to yourself, but you do your loved ones a disservice by thinking so poorly of yourself.”

Rendered speechless again, Theron dropped his hands into his lap and sat, studying his fingernails. Figments of his nightmare surfaced again, and he imagined he could see blood on his hands, but there was nothing there. Miranza hadn’t bled – at least, not as much as his mind wanted him to think she had; her external injuries had been mostly bloodless and the pacemaker, while certainly damaging given how it was inserted, was designed to ensure minimal risk to the patient – and he’d scrubbed his hands clean several times over since arriving at the cottage. His nightmare resurfaced again and he could feel the slick blood on his hands and heard that horrible bone-crunching sound again. He shook his head, attempting to shake the memories loose.

“I’m not very good at being … kind … to myself,” he said at last. “I don’t have a lot of … experience with that. Not to sound self-pitying.” He dredged up what he hoped was a rakish smile, although judging by Oriana’s sympathetic expression it felt flat. “Let’s be honest, though – well-adjusted people don’t usually become spies.”

“Perhaps, but the Force must have had a reason for the direction your life has taken.”

For a brief moment Theron wanted to argue the point with her. Even the _suggestion_ that the Force had had anything to do with guiding or directing his life made him bristle with rage, because it hardly seemed fair or reasonable for some entity that didn’t even see fit to talk to him to have such control over his fate. But then he saw the kindness and empathy on Oriana’s face and, thinking of what she’d done to save Miranza’s life, he pushed his anger down.

Jedi or not, Oriana hadn’t owed it to him to save Miranza, much less to do so and make no effort to alert the Republic authorities on Belsavis to her presence. Theron had no doubt they were being hunted now, and while they’d done their best to ensure they weren’t seen breaking into the prison there was bound to be holorecordings or some other way for Jace to know who all had participated in Kaliyo’s rescue. (Not that Theron thought his father would be surprised to see him, Miranza or Vector there. The trap had been designed for Miranza, after all, and where she went, they went.) All it would take for them to be captured would be for Oriana to comm a single Republic official to have an army of droids and soldiers (and possibly even Jedi) waiting outside the cottage door. And if Jace did send an army, they would be in no position to stop them.

Instead, however, Oriana had set Miranza up in the kolto-filled tub before sitting down and using her own talents at Force-healing to treat her while her husband Felix handled triage for the rest of the team. (Theron hadn’t really noticed getting hit during any of the fights with the droids, but he was certainly noticing the various cuts and bruises now that the adrenaline had worn off.) Barrazhat was plied with food heavy in proteins and carbohydrates in order to replenish what his own efforts at Force-healing had cost him, and then sent to bed with instructions to drink as much water as he could reasonably manage any time he woke up. Oriana and Felix had made room in their home for Theron and his team, and he owed her better than to go off on her because the Force was mean to him.

That didn't mean he particularly wanted to discuss the matter, however.

“Maybe,” he said finally, with as little inflection in his voice as he could manage. He stood, bending to place a brief kiss on Miranza’s forehead – was it his imagination, or did the corners of her mouth twitch upwards at the contact? – and made to head for the door. “I’m gonna go … uh … find Vector. Do you mind …?” He gestured at Miranza.

Oriana nodded, heading towards the kitchen. “I know I should try getting more sleep – when the baby sleeps, you sleep, that’s the rule – but I think I’ll just make myself some tea, then come back here and keep Miranza company. Go, find your partner, and do try to get more rest, the both of you. Milo will be up in a few hours and … well, just try sleeping through a four-year-old’s morning routine!”

Belatedly Theron remembered that Felix and Oriana’s oldest child was named Milo; the baby was Caia. He returned Oriana’s nod and quietly exited the cottage, heading out in search of Vector.

Vector hadn’t returned to their shared tent, nor had he decided to take himself to Micah’s ship. Instead, Theron found him sitting on the short wooden dock that overlooked the small lake at the rear of the property. The Joiner had removed his boots and socks and rolled up the cuffs of his pants so that he could dangle his feet in the water, and aside from the gentle paddling of his toes he was still and quiet. Theron knew Vector sensed his presence before he stepped onto the dock, but the other man didn’t turn around or acknowledge him until he was slipping out of his own boots. He hadn’t bothered with socks (given how dark the tent had been Theron wasn’t even certain he could have _found_ his socks). Theron dipped his feet into the water, expecting to find it chilly, but instead it was pleasantly warm and he contemplated an early morning swim. He wasn’t sure what Oriana or Felix would think of him skinny-dipping behind their cottage, however.

“She’s resting comfortably,” Theron said finally, knowing Vector would have been able to track his progress from the cottage. “Oriana doesn’t seem concerned.”

Vector nodded, not looking over at Theron. His hands were folded neatly in his lap, unmoving, and his gaze was fixed on some point ahead of them – the water, perhaps, or the trees beyond. His face might have been carved from stone: cold, beautiful, and utterly devoid of emotion or humanity.

“You okay?” Theron asked, uncomfortable with the other man’s silence.

Turning only his head, Vector looked at him, then down, at his hands. When he spoke his voice was so quiet Theron almost couldn’t make out what he said.

“We – _I_ – could not do it. It was necessary and yet – we froze. We panicked. We were afraid of hurting her. Our inaction … we … It … I could have killed her.”

“But you didn’t,” Theron replied automatically, realizing that Vector was referring to his hesitation when Rekka had ordered him to use the pacemaker on Miranza. “And … it was okay. I did it. It’s fine. She’ll be fine.”

“No thanks to us,” Vector said, with a bitterness and note of self-recrimination Theron hadn’t ever heard before in the Joiner’s voice.

Theron bumped his shoulder against Vector’s, scooting a bit closer so that his thigh brushed the other man’s. He didn’t know how to comfort Vector; self-doubt and blame were much more _his_ traditional characteristics than the Joiner’s, and he was wrong-footed at being in the position of the supportive partner. Not that he wasn’t supportive of Vector or Miranza, but … In that moment, Theron became rather painfully aware of just how much he relied upon the two of them to keep him balanced and functional. It was an uncomfortable moment of self-discovery, and he wondered whether either of them ever resented him for it – for how much he depended on them. They certainly gave no indication of it.

“You were afraid of hurting her,” Theron said, echoing Vector’s words. “It’s okay.”

Vector was silent again, still studying his hands. His feet paddled back and forth in the water, his long, elegant toes curling and uncurling. After a moment his hand stretched out, fingers brushing over Theron’s. Theron turned his hand palm upwards and Vector took it, entwining their fingers together, palms touching. Theron gave his hand a small squeeze, ducking his head in a smile when Vector automatically squeezed back.

O o O o O

__  
**Somewhere, Some When**  


_Blood pooled at her feet, circling the shower drain before mixing with the cold water and washing away. She was dimly aware of Theron beside her, murmuring soothing nonsense at her as he helped her clean off the blood – her blood, his blood, Samar’s blood. Or was it Vector’s? She frowned, the images in her mind blending together until she couldn’t be certain which was memory and which nightmare: Samar, facedown on the bed, throat slit open in a ragged gash, blood everywhere; Samar shifting to Vector, all-black eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, face gone slack in death, still that same horrific slash across his throat and the blood –_

No. Vector hadn’t been there. That hadn’t been him in the bed. That hadn’t been him who had –

_Cold hands gripped her own, rubbing the blood away. She looked down, recognizing Theron’s strong, capable hands with their square blunt nails and the faint dark hair over his knuckles. In the harsh light of the ‘fresher his skin looked grey and as she blinked the water out of her eyes she thought she could see specks of mould or decay spreading across his flesh._

_She twisted in his grasp, turning to look at him. Theron’s face had the same greyish cast and his eyes – that beautiful hazel – were dull and milky as they stared at her intently. Below the strong curve of his jaw she could see the gaping wound in his throat, where the jagged shard of broken vase had slashed him clear across so that his blood could spill out across her –_

No. Theron lived, it had been Samar who had died.

This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, _wrong._

_His hands closed around hers, his hard, dead fingers pressing in against the open wounds on her palms. She had cut herself, wielding the broken vase like a scalpel to tear Samar’s – Vector’s? Theron’s? – throat open. Theron’s fingers squeezed and she gasped at the pain in her hands. He changed his grip, and for just a moment it was Vector’s elegant hands that wrapped around her wrists, not Theron’s, and then it changed again and it was Samar – still dead, still with that awful wound at his throat, the blood dripping down his chest to splatter into the water at her feet – who was grabbing her, pinning her, shoving her until her back was up against the wall of the shower stall. Something jabbed into her back and pain flared, racing up and down her spine, feeling more like a burn or a shock than like something pressing against her._

_Theron – dead eyes staring sightlessly, his sensuous mouth twisting upwards into a hard, cruel smile – slammed her hands up over her head. He leaned in to kiss her and as his lips parted carrion beetles began spilling forth from his opened mouth._

_Miranza opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Precious and Fragile Things" is a line from the song "Precious" by Depeche Mode. (The followup lines are "Need special handling/My god what have we done to you.")


	12. Where My Demons Hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real world is dark and horrible, so here, have some fluff with a side helping of mild angst.

_**Belsavis, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“Come on, blondie, just a few more steps and you’re there.”

Miranza let out a huff of disgust, but permitted Felix to assist her the last few steps towards the low couch. When she reached it she all but fell onto the soft cushions, sagging against Theron with a small, defeated sigh. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her in close and planting a kiss on her forehead, just above the almost-faded scar that was the last remembrance of their misadventures in the cybernetics clinic. Theron didn’t like the way Miranza trembled against him but he kept his mouth shut, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate him drawing attention to her weakness and exhaustion. Besides, of the people present in the main room of the cottage, only the two small children were unaware of Miranza’s condition, and the adults recognized her strength and stubbornness.

“You’re doing well,” Oriana commented, directing her young son in setting out the cutlery for dinner. In the few days they had been staying with the Jedi and her family Theron had discovered the odd – to him, at least – ritual of ‘family dinner’ which Oriana and Felix insisted he and the others take part in. Milo, the four-year-old, set the forks and spoons down with a clatter, then, with the great deliberation common to small children and drunkards, began putting the cutlery into the proper spots. He had the forks and spoons backwards – Oriana wouldn’t yet trust her son with knives, so she was the one placing them – but otherwise Theron thought the kid did a fine job. He wasn’t sure whether Oriana’s praise was directed at Milo or at Miranza, however, until he saw Miranza nod slowly and attempt a weak smile that was only faintly tinged with bitterness.

“Your recovery will take time,” the Jedi continued, smiling serenely in Miranza’s direction before surreptitiously correcting her son’s handiwork. “You’ve already made excellent progress. Don’t begrudge yourself the need to rest and recuperate.”

Her husband, a tall, dark-skinned man with a smattering of freckles across his face and a tattoo on his right cheek, draped one arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her in for a kiss, smiling against her mouth. When he looked back at Theron and Miranza, his expression was one of approval. “You’re doing great. You already made it four steps further this evening than you did this morning – that’s fantastic progress.”

Miranza made some disparaging sounds but didn’t argue the matter. Theron understood her frustration – while his own circumstances had been different, he certainly knew what it was like to feel as though his body wasn’t his own – but Felix and Oriana were right, she was doing well and showed signs of constant improvement. Considering that less than a week ago she had been on death’s doorstep, Theron felt she was doing _phenomenally_ well – but he knew she wasn’t recovering fast enough for her liking. Oriana wanted her to remain on Belsavis until she could reliably move around on her own, but Theron knew Miranza was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the threat she presented. While it seemed as though for the most part the Republic soldiers stationed on Belsavis had no desire to interfere with the Jedi or her career-soldier husband, it was surely only a matter of time before someone began to wonder about the freighter occasionally parked on their property and the guests staying at their cottage. He didn’t know how much leeway Oriana's unique status afforded them, and Theron was just as reluctant as Miranza to bring the authorities down on the peaceful little family.

“All done, Mama!” Milo piped up, earning himself a fond hair-ruffle from his mother. The little boy turned his inquisitive gaze towards Vector, immediately zeroing in on the Joiner and sitting down cross-legged on the floor in front of him. “Story time?”

With the casual ease so common to very young children Milo had quickly dismissed any of Vector’s oddities as being of only minor interest, instead choosing to focus on the Joiner’s seemingly endless array of historical anecdotes and obscure mythologies. Vector, with his liquid cadences and facility with words, proved to be an excellent storyteller, and Milo – who had rapidly overcome his shyness around the veritable army of strangers who had invaded his home – had latched onto him and his stories with both hands.

Chuckling, Vector set aside his datapad and smiled in Milo’s direction. In addition to providing storytelling services Vector had taken it upon himself to manage communications between their ship and Lana, partly as a way of keeping himself busy and partly because if he didn’t, Miranza would try to handle everything and at the moment she couldn’t read for more than ten minutes at a time without her eyes going blurry.

“If your mother says there is enough time before dinner,” Vector said, drawing the little boy up onto his lap, “then yes, we would be delighted to share another tale with you.” At Oriana’s nod, Milo clapped his hands excitedly and wriggled around, making himself comfortable, and Vector launched into the beginnings of the story of the Border Lords of Alderaan.

Theron caught sight of the speculative look Oriana gave Vector, and heard Miranza sigh again, her breath warm on his cheek.

“He’s so good with them,” she murmured, pitching her voice low so that only Theron could hear her. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s missing out because of me.”

Tightening his arm around her waist, Theron brushed his lips over her forehead again, whispering back, “He’s enjoying this, but he _wants_ you.”

“He wants _us_ ,” Miranza corrected. She drew her feet up onto the couch, tucking them under her as she curled up against Theron. Her head nestled in on his chest, her hair tickling his chin. With his free hand Theron dragged a well-loved quilt off the back of the couch and draped it over her, drawing it up to her shoulders. After the exercise she’d done – and these days, walking around the main room constituted as exercise for Miranza – Theron knew she would be drifting off to sleep soon, and he wanted her as comfortable as possible while still sitting with him. It wouldn’t matter if she missed dinner; Oriana or Felix would be sure to leave something for her to eat when she next woke up.

Letting Miranza snuggle up against him, Theron turned his attention to Vector. Miranza wasn’t wrong in her assessment of her husband: Vector _was_ good with the children. He didn’t have much experience in taking care of infants – none of them did; it simply wasn’t something that came up often in either Intelligence or diplomatic training – but he certainly knew how to interact with them. Milo adored him already, and Caia was rapt every time he spoke with her. Theron thought that, under different circumstances, Vector would have made an excellent father; at the same time, however, he knew that Vector didn’t regret any of the choices he’d made, and that the life he lived now was the life he wanted to live. Minus the odd catastrophe and life-threatening circumstances, of course.

_Speaking of people who are surprisingly good with kids …_ , Theron mused, as Barrazhat came out of the master bedroom with a freshly-changed Caia in his arms. The baby had one of the Pureblood’s facial tendrils in her chubby little hand and was cackling with demented glee at the faces he was making at her. Never in a million years would Theron have expected a Pureblood bounty hunter to be the least bit paternal, but as it turned out Barrazhat and Rekka had three children of their own, all over the age of ten. The oldest was taking part in a gundark hunt on Dromund Kaas while the younger two were staying with Rekka’s _aliit_ , or family. Theron didn’t know enough about Mandalorian customs to know whether or not this was normal, but he did know that both Barrazhat and Rekka considered their involvement in the growing resistance against Zakuul to be important enough to leave their family in order to assist him and his team. Seeing Barrazhat with Caia, Theron was forcibly reminded of everything they were fighting for.

“This little _ik’aad_ is all changed,” Barrazhat announced, handing the infant over to her father. Caia clung stubbornly to his tendril before latching her fingers onto Felix’s nose, all but jamming one up his nostril as he tried to pry her loose. The Pureblood chuckled at that as he moved towards the sink to wash his hands, calling over his shoulder, “Rekka commed me from out in the field. She says she and Qyzen are out along the eastern perimeter and won’t be back in time for dinner; the Trandoshan wanted to show her a good hunting spot. ‘Many Jaganath points,’ apparently.”

Theron had been a little surprised by how easily the two bounty hunters had befriended Oriana’s Trandoshan companion, Qyzen Fess, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been: all three of them shared a love of the hunt and a healthy competitive streak. Rekka and Barrazhat had taken turns accompanying Qyzen on his patrols of the area, ensuring that no wild animals (or desperate criminals) came too close to the Jedi’s family. Them staying out late was hardly a new thing or cause for concern as their patrol routes frequently occupied them for hours. Oriana and Felix tended to send them out with plenty of food to snack on, and always remembered to package up some leftovers from dinner for when they got back. If it weren’t for Qyzen’s obvious devotion to Oriana and her family, Theron half suspected the Trandoshan might have decided to leave Belsavis with the hunters when the time finally came for them to head out.

“Say good-night to your sister, little man,” Felix said. He carried Caia over to where Milo sat on Vector’s lap, ducking down so that the four-year-old could kiss the baby’s forehead and, speaking as though reciting from memory, offer forth a lengthy good-night message while his father beamed with pride overhead. Vector, in turn, gave his good-byes to the sleepy-looking infant before Felix and Oriana went and carried Caia into the master bedroom together to put her down for the night.

Despite having spent the past few days with the Jedi’s family, Theron was still completely confounded by all the little rituals and traditions that seemed to comprise their day-to-day living. Much of it seemed to be based around songs and games: the tooth-brushing song, the ‘tidy-your-things’ game, the little ditty Felix sang when he was helping his son get dressed. Vector and Rekka didn’t seem to find any of it nearly as mystifying as Theron did, but he was at least in good company: Miranza and Barrazhat were equally confused. He supposed it was the hallmarks of a normal, happy childhood, which was something that he, Miranza and Barrazhat knew very little about.

Theron looked down, intending to exchange amused glances with Miranza, but as soon as he saw her he realized that she had fallen asleep. He had been expecting as much, and so it was instead Vector that he exchanged glances with, as the Joiner noticed her at roughly the same time he did. Vector arched an eyebrow in question; Theron, now long familiar with the art of silent communication within their relationship, gave a minute shake of his head. Miranza weighed next to nothing; he could easily carry her to the nursery. Now that Barrazhat was fully recovered from his amateur attempts at Force-healing he and Rekka were camped out back in a tent of their own, and Miranza had been moved into the children’s nursery, where her much smaller frame was a far better fit for Milo’s bed than Barrazhat’s had been. Having apparently taken pity on Kaliyo’s complete and utter lack of interest in children, families or anything even remotely domestic – not to mention deciding to reduce the strain on Oriana and Felix’s little household – Micah and Teeseven had opted to fly Kaliyo to the Imperial orbital station and help her make arrangements to get off-world. Kaliyo intended to head to Zakuul; she had big plans that she refused to share with anyone else, but which most likely involved explosives and an over-abundance of alcohol (and an under-abundance of caution or common sense). If Miranza was offended by Kaliyo’s lack of gratitude over the rescue she gave no inclination.

Easing himself out from under his slumbering lover, Theron bent and slid him arms under Miranza, lifting both her and the quilt together. Her head bumped against his shoulder and she murmured sleepily at him, stiffening in his arms before sensing he was the one carrying her and then relaxing again. He cradled her carefully, as though she was made of glass; while Miranza wasn’t quite so fragile as all that, Theron was conscious of how close he had come to losing her, and he knew how much pain she was still in, even if she made her best effort to disguise it. Her hands, feet and back had all been burned by the electricity that had struck her, and in addition to the damage to her chest caused by the insertion of the pacemaker she had a number of minute fractures that had occurred as the result of muscle spasms (not to mention the impact of well over a hundred kilos of heavily-armoured Pureblood colliding into her at top speed to break her free of the trap). Between the Force-healing and the kolto dip she was recovering at a much faster rate than she would have on her own, but she was still exhausted and in almost constant pain, and the last thing Theron wanted to do was make matters worse by handling her too roughly. Even if she did roll her eyes at him and accuse him of wanting to wrap her up in cotton batting.

The nursery, where first Barrazhat and now Miranza were staying, was a small room right beside the master bedroom that had been decorated with children in mind. The room was bright and cheerful, even late in the day with the sun setting behind the lacy curtains, and someone had painted the walls in bright colours with cartoonish animals cavorting in comical scenes. Caia had a crib in there – as well as a smaller bassinet that could be carried into her parents’ bedroom, which was where she was sleeping while there were guests present – and Milo had a small, child-sized bed piled high with stuffed toys and animals. At the moment those toys were placed with great care in a large basket on the floor to make room for the grown-up who was using Milo’s bed, and while Theron couldn’t say for certain he thought it likely that Milo had been the one to move his toys. The little boy seemed to take great pride in seeing to the needs of ‘his’ guests.

Theron carried Miranza over to Milo’s bed, settling her down gently over the colourful blankets and tucking the quilt up under her chin. Although she was much, much smaller than Barrazhat Miranza still needed to curl up on her side in order to fit properly on the bed, but she was far more comfortable than the Pureblood had been, and by sleeping in the nursery she would be close by in case she needed the Jedi to come and check on her. As both Vector and Theron had suspected Miranza was not entirely thrilled at being treated by a Force-user, but the Mirialan Jedi was so kind and friendly that it was difficult to suspect her of anything malicious, and Theron knew Miranza was just as charmed by Oriana’s husband and children as he was. While Theron certainly had no desire whatsoever to ever repeat this experience, he couldn’t help but feel that the pastoral setting and the friendly, welcoming family were as vital a part of the healing experience as the kolto and the Force had been.

Leaving Miranza to her much-needed rest, Theron headed back out into the main room, where Vector was helping Milo get seated at the table while Felix carried over the hot dishes. Theron didn’t know if dinners were always such a big to-do for the Jedi and her family, but every night they’d shared the table with them there had always been plenty of food and it always seemed like a big production. This night was no different: mashed tubers, mixed vegetables, freshly-baked bread (which Theron and Milo had helped Felix make), and some kind of meat – Theron didn’t want to ask what it was, but there wasn’t anything ronto- or nerf-like on Belsavis so he did wonder – in a savoury sauce. Everything smelled and looked delicious.

No matter how many times Theron sat down to dinner with Oriana and her family, the ritual simplicity of it never failed to amaze him. To him, mealtimes had always been a rushed affair: scarfing down ration bars on the speeder or shuttle on his way to assignments, stealing pastries from Director Trant’s breakfast table during briefings, the occasional protein shake before hurrying out the door to meet with Lana or Jonas Balkar. When he’d been a child living with Master Zho their meals had been eaten by the campfire or as they were racing from one hideout to the next. He often ate meals with Miranza and Vector, and while Miranza certainly took pride and pleasure in cooking for them, there was never any sense of ceremony about it – stars, nine times out of ten they were working on datapads and snatching bites between comm chats, not sitting down together to share their days with each other the way Oriana, Felix and Milo did. The closest Theron had ever come to experiencing something like this was the brief time he had lived on Tython, before he’d been sent away: a long hall filled with tables and benches, Jedi and their Padawans sitting and eating together, the weight of hand-crafted dishes and cutlery in his hands, the taste of simple, nurturing food and the steady hum of friendly conversation. Sitting around the table with Oriana and her family, enjoying the peaceful simplicity of a home-cooked meal and cheerful companionship, Theron felt something tighten inside his chest, and he wondered yet again what his life would have been like had his mother chosen to keep him or had he shown the least amount of aptitude for the Force. Could he have had something like this? Would he have even _wanted_ it, if he had?

Across the table Barrazhat was discreetly showing Milo how to hide his unwanted vegetables under a fold of the napkin in order to avoid eating them. Milo had none of the hunter’s subtlety, of course, and he kept giggling loudly and snatching quick glances at his parents to see if they noticed (they did, but pretended not to). Vector lavished eloquent praise on the food, as always; thanks to his uniquely enhanced senses he was capable of tasting even the most minor notes of flavour, and with his gift for language he could make even the most mundane meal sound like it was being served at one of the finest restaurants in the galaxy (and he lavished even more praise on the bread, which earned him a beaming smile from Milo). Oriana and Felix spoke together quietly, discussing her plans to secure funding from a senator ally of hers in order to get more reading material for her students – the children of criminals, who had had the misfortune of being born on Belsavis and having no way to escape. Theron sat in the middle of it all, eating his dinner and quietly observing everyone and trying to get a bead on the complicated emotions he was feeling.

A sudden, shrill scream interrupted their meal, startling Theron so badly he dropped his fork. It landed on his plate with a noisy clatter that was drowned out by more panic-stricken cries. Vector pushed his chair back, gesturing for Theron to continue eating, and made his way to the nursery to soothe Miranza out of another nightmare. Everyone else at the table froze – except for Milo, who, frightened by the obvious terror in Miranza’s voice, began to cry. And then, from the master bedroom, the noise that the adults were all waiting for: the plaintive wail of a newly-awakened infant.

There was a brief moment when both Felix and Oriana seemed to deflate a little, but then Oriana straightened again and plastered on a smile as she hurried into the bedroom to comfort her daughter. Barrazhat, with parenting skills that continued to come as a huge surprise to Theron, distracted Milo by asking the little boy to show him his favourite toy again, which necessitated the two of them leaving the table in order to rifle through the toybox in the corner of the main room. Theron hesitated, uncertain whether he should go help Vector with Miranza or stay at the table with Felix, who seemed grateful to be let off kid-duty for the time being. Felix solved Theron’s dilemma by virtue of pouring them both some whiskey, setting the glass down in front of Theron with a light thump.

“She’ll be all right, you know,” the older man said, hooking one arm over the back of his chair. “Drink up, calm your nerves, and let someone else take care of things for a change. Nobody’s gonna hurt her here.”

Masking his confusion behind taking a sip of his drink – he hadn’t had anything alcoholic the entire time they’d been on Belsavis, and the whiskey was a welcome break from the impromptu bout of sobriety – Theron met Felix’s warm brown eyes and saw nothing but compassion there.

“I’m sorry we’re freaking your kids out,” he said finally, not knowing how else to respond.

Felix shrugged, scratching at the five o’clock shadow darkening his jawline. “Eh, they’ll be all right. Ori knows how to calm Caia down, and it looks like your friend Barrazhat has Milo well in hand.” He nodded towards the Pureblood and the little half-Mirialan boy, sitting together cross-legged on the floor while Milo showed off his current favourite stuffed animal. Felix helped himself to some of Milo’s ‘cleverly-hidden’ vegetables, talking around his mouthful, “We’ve all had nightmares before. Nobody here’s gonna judge her for it.”

Theron nodded slowly, staring down at his drink. The whiskey was a rich, dark amber, and it left traces on the sides of the glass as he swirled it around. It was a good quality alcohol, not so fine as the stuff you could get on Corellia, but definitely up there. He wondered who Felix’s supplier was, and how difficult it must be to get decent goods on Belsavis without resorting to smugglers.

“Milo gets night terrors sometimes,” Felix went on. He shrugged again, giving Theron an easy grin. “Over-active imagination, mostly. We’ve managed to spare him the bad stuff here on Belsavis, and he doesn’t remember being off-world. Milo’s monsters under the bed are only imaginary, but you and me – and Ori and Vector, Miranza and Barrazhat – our monsters are real. Your girl, she’s got some real demons inside her head, doesn’t she?”

Thinking of the pieces of Miranza’s past that Theron knew of – Hunter, the Star Cabal, Darth Jadus and the Eradicators – and the parts that he’d shared, Theron nodded again. It was impossible to be in their line of work and not acquire their own assortment of monsters, ghosts and skeletons in the closet, and Miranza certainly had more than her fair share. Theron should know; he had more than his fair share, too. He had the impression that a man like Felix, in spite of his warm, open demeanour and easy acceptance of them in his life, understood precisely what that was like. As difficult as he found it to wrap his head around the idea of a Jedi who had chosen to marry and raise a family, Theron was positive it would take an extraordinary person to make someone like Oriana choose to retreat from the Order and the Code enough to have the kind of life that Oriana and Felix shared. Felix was steady and cheerful and welcoming – but Theron suspected he had some demons in _his_ head, too.

“Well, she’s beaten them all, hasn’t she? To end up here, alive and kicking?” Felix continued, oblivious to Theron’s thoughts. “Your girl’s gonna be okay. I see the way the three of you look at each other. You found yourselves something special – you hold on to that with both hands.”

“I intend to,” Theron replied fervently, with another nod. He finished his whiskey just as Vector returned to the table and stood behind him, his hands on Theron’s shoulders.

“Ulgo,” Vector said quietly, by way of explanation. Theron just nodded again, feeling as though his head was on some sort of spring the way he just kept bobbing it around. He was very familiar with Miranza’s Alric Ulgo nightmares, and once again he wished he’d had the opportunity to make the man suffer more than he did when he killed him. He didn’t consider himself to be particularly vindictive or vicious, but Alric Ulgo – the Alderaanian bastard who had tortured Miranza over a period of days – brought every cruel, malicious thought he’d ever had to the surface.

Vector slid into the chair beside Theron, helping himself to Theron’s glass and nodding for Felix to refill it. Oriana rejoined them a few minutes later and settled herself down onto her husband’s lap.

“Princess Caia-kitten is back to sleep,” she announced in the satisfied voice of a woman who had just won a hard-fought victory. She glanced behind Theron and Vector, giving her son a fond smile before adding, “And Prince Milo-bug can have ten more minutes of play-time with the big, bad bounty hunter and then it’s his turn for bed.”

Behind him Theron heard Barrazhat snort in amusement, and he had to acknowledge – if only to himself – that he was definitely going to have a much harder time taking the Pureblood seriously after seeing him singing nursery rhymes (complete with facial expressions and elaborate hand-gestures) to a four-year-old. He never would have described Barrazhat as ‘cuddly’ before, but, there it was.

Grinning, Felix wrapped his arms around his wife and settled his chin on her shoulder.

“See?” he said to Theron, waggling his hands for good show. “You hold on with both hands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a line from the song "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. I had the refrain "Don't get too close/It's dark inside/It's where my demons hide/It's where my demons hide" playing in my head while I was writing this; it just seemed really appropriate.
> 
> Mandalorian:  
>  _Aliit_ family, clan  
>  _Ik'aad_ baby, child under three


	13. Empty and Loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Theron Shan plan goes about as well as expected, and Crumpet attempts to earn her "Explicit" rating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second half of this chapter is very much NSFW.

**_Coronet City, Corellia, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ ** __

_This is a mistake._

The thought had been a running theme from the moment Theron’s shuttle landed on Corellia, and it echoed the exact words Vector, Rekka _and_ Barrazhat had all said to him when he’d made the decision to accept his father’s request for a meeting. _Again._ Miranza was the only member of their crew who hadn’t spoken out against Theron’s plans, and that was probably only because she wasn’t _aware_ of his plans to begin with. She spent the bulk of her time either on board the Mercurial or hiding out in one of their safe houses, sleeping and recuperating. Theron didn’t want to worry her.

Even now, Miranza was safely back on New Plympto, with Barrazhat serving as her bodyguard until Theron, Vector and Rekka returned. Barrazhat had wanted to accompany Theron, but there was still no way a giant Pureblood like himself could wander around Republic-held Corellia without drawing unnecessary attention, and his Mandalorian armour wouldn’t have been much better as a disguise. The bounty hunter made for an irritable and impatient babysitter, and Theron didn’t envy Barrazhat or Miranza the time they would spend stuck in close quarters together, but Miranza couldn’t be left alone and Barrazhat couldn’t go to Corellia, so having them remain at the safe house on New Plympto was their best solution.

Seated out on the patio at the same restaurant he had visited before, Theron did another sweep of his environment while he let his mind drift towards his numerous concerns regarding Miranza. His server had poured him a cup of caf while he waited for Jace Malcom to arrive, and he was already on his second refill. The restaurant was busy; it was one of the few establishments up and running after the liberation of Corellia, and it had a relatively inexpensive menu that catered as much to the various construction crews as to the returning office workers, so Theron guessed it was probably _always_ busy regardless of the time of day. In addition to the families, coworkers and friends he saw sitting together enjoying a late lunch, Theron had also pegged a few people he thought might be working for Jace, men and women who held themselves like soldiers and who were scanning the crowd just as he was. That was all right: Theron wasn’t there alone, either, and while he couldn’t match the kind of numbers the Supreme Commander of the Republic Military could pull in, Theron felt that he could beat them for quality. Rekka sat off to one side, drinking some kind of sparkling fruit juice and looking remarkably harmless in a pretty turquoise sundress (which Theron had made the mistake of commenting on, earning himself a raised eyebrow and an indignant “ _What? I can take you apart just as easily in this as in my_ beskar’gam, aruetii”). Vector, likewise, had a small table to himself and looked the part of an average Corellian businessman in a plain dark suit, a cybernetics-laden visor hiding his eyes as he pretended to read the local news on a datapad. Theron was confident that the Republic soldiers hadn’t noticed either of them; he was equally confident that both Rekka and Vector had made note of _them,_ however.

Still, agreeing to meet with his father was a bad idea. A terrible idea. And Theron knew bad ideas, because he was full of them, all the time. He was also filled with just as many doubts as his teammates were – more, probably, because at least Barrazhat and Rekka didn’t also need to contend with the crippling sense of betrayal that occupied him whenever he thought about what Jace had done. But that was precisely the reason he had agreed to meet with the older man: Theron wanted answers, and Jace Malcom was the only one who could provide them. And Jace was not about to discuss his motivations and reasonings over holocall.

Theron rubbed a hand over his face and checked the time on his wrist-chrono. Jace was running late, and that put Theron ill at ease. (Or rather, more ill at ease, since he’d been nervous to begin with.) The presence of Republic soldiers – disguised though they were – made him confident his father intended to show, but the fact that he wasn’t on time forced him to wonder what the man was planning. He didn’t think his father would try anything aggressive when there were families with small children and other innocent civilians nearby, but then again he also hadn’t thought his father would try to murder the woman he loved, and _boy,_ had he been wrong about _that_ one.

Miranza had survived, but only through the quick thinking of Barrazhat. And if the Pureblood hadn’t been on the freighter with them – and if Oriana Zarasa hadn’t made the choice to live on Belsavis rather than literally anywhere else in the galaxy – she likely _still_ would have died. That trap, the pieces of which Kaliyo had stripped free from the walls while Rekka, Theron and Vector were working desperately to save Miranza and Barrazhat, had been designed to kill, and the only reason it had failed was because Barrazhat had thrown himself at Miranza and knocked her out of the way. If he hadn’t been so fast on his feet, Theron had no doubt that he and Vector would have continued to stand there, frozen in place, while she was dying in front of them. Even now, several weeks later, Miranza was still weak and sore, and she could barely walk to the ‘fresher without assistance. The bandages had only recently come off her hands and feet, courtesy of the burns she’d received when she’d been hit with Force only knew how much electricity, while her back, which had likewise been burned, was still covered up, and was likely to scar. To make matters worse she was suffering from an arrhythmia that left her frequently dizzy and exhausted, and neither Theron nor Vector felt comfortable leaving her on her own for fear they would find her passed out in the shower again – or worse.

And this – this was all courtesy of Jace Malcom. Theron’s father. Damn _right_ Theron wanted answers.

But still. This was a bad idea.

Theron felt uncomfortably exposed out on the patio, even knowing Rekka and Vector both had their eyes on him and were, despite appearances, both armed and armoured. He likewise wore armour under his jacket and openly carried both his blasters, and he had two holdout pistols, one holstered between his shoulder blades, the other tucked into an ankle holster inside his left boot. His implants were set to proximity sensor mode, scanning his immediate surroundings for any potential threats – it was a mild annoyance to be alerted every time a waiter or other customers walked by him, but his paranoia was sufficient to outweigh the irritation. Short of showing up in full _beskar’gam_ – and he had no doubt Rekka and Barrazhat would’ve figured out a way to find Mandalorian armour that would fit him – this was the best he could do to ensure his own safety.

Affecting a nonchalance he did not feel, Theron leaned back in his chair and took another drink of his caf. He was just setting his cup back onto the table when he saw his father in the doorway, his dark eyes searching the crowded patio for Theron. Theron saw it the moment Jace found him: a slight tightening in his jaw, followed by what looked – surprisingly – like relief. Had the other man been expecting a trap? An ambush? Or was he actually relieved at seeing his son alive and well ( _in spite of his best efforts,_ an angry voice in the back of Theron’s head reminded him)?

This time there was no Elara Dorne in sight, although Theron wasn’t so foolish as to believe the Supreme Commander had come alone. Jace approached Theron’s table, moving with the same confidence and bearing that Theron had recognized in the other soldiers scattered throughout the restaurant, and when he got within a couple of yards Theron’s proximity sensors set off an alarm that pinged in his ear until he blinked to shut it off. Standing at last in front of Theron, one hand resting on the back of the empty seat across from him, Jace raised a dark eyebrow in inquiry then, at Theron’s nod, sat down.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show up this time,” Jace said. Theron bit back several caustic responses and waited for their server to take Jace’s order – just caf this time – before leaning one arm over the railing that overlooked the street below.

“Why’s that?” Theron replied, making no effort to mask his sarcasm. “Because you tried to have Miranza killed?”

Jace winced, scars stretching tight across his face, but didn’t deny it. “Your girlfriend is a high-priority Imperial target. A _legitimate_ Imperial target. Do you have _any_ idea how many Republic citizens’ deaths are on her hands?”

“I’ve got a better idea than you,” Theron retorted. “And her targets have all been ‘legitimate,’ too.”

“Oh? Those tens of thousands of Imperial citizens she helped Darth Jadus murder on Eradication Day – those were all legitimate targets, Theron?” If Jace was hoping to surprise Theron with that revelation he was in for disappointment: Miranza still had nightmares about Eradication Day and the decision she had made to assist Darth Jadus in activating the Eradicators in the hopes that it would enable her team to capture him. Theron knew those deaths haunted her, close to a decade later. Recognizing that his son wasn’t fazed by the mention of Eradication Day, Jace leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his broad chest, something uncomfortable and worrying in his dark eyes. “You knew? She told you about that?”

“Of course I knew.” Theron didn’t feel it was his place to tell his father that Miranza could only ever talk about Eradication Day in the wee hours of the morning, when the nightmares wouldn’t let her sleep and the three of them were cuddled together in bed, offering one another mutual comfort and support. They all had demons; they fought them together.

Rallying, Jace’s mouth twisted in a hard line. “And the people of House Cortess, the ones she handed over to be made into Killik slaves – I assume she told you about them, too. More legitimate targets, Theron?”

“Yes,” Theron answered tightly, “I know about that.” He’d learned about House Cortess from Vector, however, not from Miranza – and he likely would not have found out at all had it not been for the fact that he and Vector had been forced to take refuge with the Cortess Killiks. There were fewer nightmares about them, but Theron was painfully, acutely aware of the fact that Miranza had paid – and paid dearly – for her decision to let the Killiks claim the House for their Hive. One of the Joiners had had an older brother who had _not_ been Joined, and he’d had his vengeance upon Miranza – and then some. Theron had stabbed the man in the chest and his only regret was that he had died too quickly.

“Then how?” Jace’s expression was one of complete bewilderment. “How can you _stay_ with her, knowing what she’s done? What she’s _capable_ of?”

_Because she knows what_ I’ve _done,_ Theron thought, although he couldn’t bring himself to admit it out loud, not to this man who was practically a stranger. _Because she knows what_ I’m _capable of._

When Theron remained silent Jace shook his head, looking completely confounded, as though Theron had confessed to being the Sith Emperor and eating manka kittens for breakfast all in the same breath. After a moment the soldier put his hands on the table and leaned towards his son, bewilderment shifting to intensity and conviction.

“Come home, Theron,” Jace said, in what had to be the most earnest tone Theron had ever heard the man use. “Come back to Coruscant. You’re needed there.”

“I’m needed here,” Theron replied, not meaning Corellia, but rather _here,_ with Miranza and Vector and the fledgling resistance movement that Lana was trying to pull together. He thought he had been certain of himself when he’d handed in his resignation to Director Trant, but now, listening to his father and realizing just how far Jace was willing to go to tear him away – to bring him home, when ‘home’ had never been a concept he’d associated with Jace Malcom or, indeed, even Coruscant – his certainty solidified and deepened. Lana needed him. Caedan – the Outlander – needed him. It had less to do with Miranza and Vector (although stars, _yes,_ they were a big part of it) and far more to do with the sorry state the galaxy was in and his own conviction that he had a role to play in fixing it.

“So that’s it, then? You’re just giving up on the Republic? Turning traitor?”

“I’m doing this to save the Republic!” Theron snapped, stung by the accusation, the word ‘traitor’ landing like a knife to his gut. He opened his mouth to launch into a full tirade but was immediately distracted by the sight of a small red dot right in the centre of his father’s chest.

_Sniper._

Theron didn’t even think, he just acted. Shouting “Get down!” at the top of his lungs, he threw himself across the table with enough force to send Jace toppling backwards in his chair. The two of them hit the ground, Theron sprawling over his father just as the first shot went off. For a brief instant he saw the rage cross Jace’s face before the other man realized what was happening, and then his Father became the Soldier and was shoving Theron off so that he could flip the table up for them both to take cover underneath.

Dishes and cutlery crashed to the ground and Theron rolled into a crouching position, one hand on his blaster pistol as he maxed out the range on his implants to try and get a bead on where the shot had been fired from. Beside him he could see Jace – pistols of his own in hand – huddling under the table, both eyes searching the rooftops of the nearby skyscrapers. The nearest buildings were little more than ruins, but Theron could see a few places where a skilled and determined climber could have made a sniper’s nest, and the open patio offered them nothing in the way of shelter.

More shots – Theron’s caf mug, already shattered on the ground, exploded into smaller chunks of ceramic as it was struck, and somewhere on the patio a woman screamed. He flinched against a sudden burst of pain in his arm and looked down to see a smoking line seared through the arm of his jacket from where the shot had connected. It hurt, but he didn’t think it was bad – just a crease. The look his father gave him, however, suggested that to Jace it _was_ bad, and he realized this was the first time he’d ever been in combat with the older man, and that Jace was afraid for him as a result.

Theron didn’t know what to make of that, so he shoved the confusing, conflicting emotions down in order to focus on the task at hand – which was trying not to get shot at while simultaneously searching for the sniper.

A hand closed over Theron’s shoulder and both he and Jace turned as one to see Rekka standing over them, not looking at either of them as she kept herself low to make a smaller target. Her turquoise dress fluttered against her legs and she looked woefully underdressed to be in the middle of a potential firefight – or she would have, were it not for the glowing blue shield that surrounded her and the blaster held in her right hand.

“Visit’s over,” she said, grey eyes darting towards Theron. “Time to go.”

Shots pinged off her shield, throwing up yellow and red sparks that dazzled Theron’s eyes. He glanced over at Jace, and saw that behind him two of his father’s own soldiers were moving in, no doubt planning to haul the Supreme Commander to safety much as Rekka intended to do with him. He hoped the soldiers weren’t also intending to drag him away, too, because he had no intentions of going and he knew neither Rekka nor Vector would permit that to happen. He didn’t want to add more enemies to the roster, not when there was an unknown sniper shooting at them and far too many civilians in the hazard zone, but he also wasn't about to let his father's people cart him back to the Republic.

“This wasn’t you?” Jace asked, just as one of his soldiers reached him and threw up a shield around him.

Theron shook his head. He would have felt insulted by his father’s question if it weren’t for the fact that he had been wondering pretty much the exact same thing about him. But if it wasn’t Theron’s team – and as pissed off as Vector was about what had happened to Miranza, Theron was still confident his lover wouldn’t have suddenly decided to start taking pot-shots at his father in the middle of a crowded patio – and it wasn’t Malcom’s team, then who the kriff was firing at them? And how had they known that Theron and Jace would be there?

He didn’t have time to worry about it – at least not then and there. Rekka, crowding in close to ensure that Theron was protected under her shield, was pushing him towards the exit, mindful of the customers and wait-staff all scurrying away from the armed woman. Theron caught sight of Vector closing in, his electrostaff out and ready, his own shield activated. The Joiner looked furious and worried at the same time, and Theron suspected he would be in for an earful when they got to safety. At the very least he could expect a chorus of “We told you so!” from Vector, Rekka and Barrazhat.

Jace, surrounded by his soldiers, met Theron’s eyes. The expression on his face was a strange mix of fear, confusion and anger, and Theron could tell his father was still wondering if his son had been the one to set up this ambush. Theron was too far away and the screaming crowd far too noisy for him to hear what his father shouted, but he thought he saw his lips form the words _Comm me_ before Rekka hauled him towards the exit, her hand still firmly clenched over Theron’s shoulder.

“That’s it,” Rekka said, as Vector fell in step beside them, “No more Corellia for you.”

Theron sighed and nodded. He’d be lucky if Miranza and Vector let him out of the safe house after this.

O o O o O

Vector realized his hands were shaking as he helped Theron strip off his ruined jacket. It wasn’t fear – although yes, fear was certainly one of the many emotions he was experiencing at the moment – but rather rage that made him tremble, a rage so hot and fierce that he felt as though he could barely contain himself. Setting the jacket aside, his gaze lingering on the singed markings down one arm, Vector clenched and unclenched his fists, willing the shaking to subside. His anger, however, remained very firmly in place. A few inches to the left and Theron would be dead. The sniper shot had cut through his armour like a vibroscalpel through butter. He had been lucky. _So very, very lucky._ Slamming the medkit down on the bench beside Theron, Vector flipped it open, drawing out the necessary supplies, and then turned his gaze to the blaster burn itself.

The wound was relatively minor, no more than a crease along Theron’s bicep that had been largely cauterized as it was inflicted. Very little bleeding, he saw, although it was bound to be tender and Theron was certainly favouring his right arm. Vector dabbed at it with an antiseptic wipe, using somewhat more force than was strictly necessary, and Theron let out a small hiss of pain.

“You’re angry,” Theron said, propping his arm up on his knee to provide Vector with a better angle.

Vector considered and discarded a number of highly acerbic responses to that understatement before finally settling on a simple, “Yes. We are angry.”

Theron sighed, then hissed again as Vector made another pass with the wipe. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think that sniper was aiming for me.”

“’ _For what it is worth,_ ’” Vector repeated in a low mutter, drawing back and clenching his fists again. He clenched his jaw too, for good measure. In fact, _everything_ felt clenched – pulled tight and taut, bracing for him to lash out and destroy something: the contents of the medkit, the tiny cramped medbay, perhaps even the entire shuttle itself. He forced himself to calm down, drawing in a few even, measured breaths. Rekka wouldn’t thank him for destroying her shuttle, and she certainly wouldn’t thank him for doing so mid-flight.

“’For what it is worth,’” Vector repeated again, in a more reasonable tone. He snorted, disdainful, and tossed the wadded-up sterile wipe onto the nearby counter, trying very hard to pretend he hadn’t seen the blood that had smeared across the cloth. So close. _Too close._ “Theron, love, it is of little comfort to us that the sniper was only _possibly_ not aiming for you, and was instead most likely taking aim at your father. Because, _love,_ that sniper _did_ hit you, and would have hit you _again_ had Rekka not been there to pull you away. And because, Theron, _love,_ this is the _second_ time we have permitted your father to injure someone we love and, Theron, _darling,_ we are rather frankly done with it. Do you not see? You could have _died,_ Theron, right there in front of us, and there would have been _nothing_ we could have done to prevent it. We do not love the notion of saying ‘I told you so’ so much that it is worth losing you for the privilege of having the chance to say it.”

Theron stared back at him, confusion and discomfort spreading across his face. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, in a very small voice, “Why are you so angry with me?”

Stars, Vector wanted to shake the man. In fact, he came perilously close to doing so, so much that his hands had taken hold of both of Theron’s shoulders in preparation for following through on the action. Releasing him, Vector took a step back and drew in several deep breaths again, repeating the process of clenching and unclenching his fists a few times for good measure. If he closed his eyes he knew he would see the memory of Miranza just as the trap was sprung, the electricity arcing through her, her back arched and her arms thrown wide. It was so easy to picture Theron in a similar predicament. It was so easy to imagine them dead. When he looked back at Theron he saw that the other man remained seated on the bench, his brow furrowed, a mixture of worry and pain in his clear hazel eyes. Vector sighed. He hadn’t meant to hurt him. His anger wasn’t even really directed at Theron, as much as his lover was a convenient and nearby outlet for it.

“We are angry with Commander Malcom,” he said quietly, sighing again. “We were terrified and we are taking it out on you, and for that we apologize. You frightened us. We heard the shot and saw you go down, and immediately we feared the worst. After everything that happened on Belsavis we do not think we can go through the terror of nearly losing someone we love again.” He didn't mention the spectre of Ziost that still hovered over them, those agonizing days when he and Miranza hadn't known whether Theron had lived or died on that devastated planet.

“I’m fine, Vector. See?” Theron flexed his bicep; the only indication that it hurt at all was the slight narrowing of his eyes, which he quickly suppressed. The burn was neat and already scabbing over; it likely wouldn't even leave a scar. “ _Fine._ It’s just a crease. I’m fine, and you’re fine, and Miranza’s going to be fine, and … See? It’s fine, it’s _okay._ ”

“It is _not_ fine,” Vector argued. Their small shuttle tilted alarmingly, sending him staggering forward until he caught himself against the bench. Rekka was a good pilot, but no doubt the urgency to get them away from Corellia was making her drive rather more recklessly than he would have preferred. The next sudden jolt caused him to careen into Theron, and the other man made a small pained noise when Vector connected with his injured arm. “It is not fine,” Vector repeated in a whisper.

Theron’s hands caught the front of Vector’s jacket, pulling him in close. His gaze, when he met Vector’s eyes, was heavy-lidded, and his lips brushed lightly against Vector’s mouth, pressing down between each word: “I. Am. _Fine._ ” He finished his statement by crushing his mouth against Vector’s in a hard, hungry kiss that left little doubt that he was, indeed, feeling perfectly well – and then some.

Adrenaline was such a funny thing. Urgency and anger turned to a different kind of passion, and the desire for Theron never really seemed to go away, no matter how furious Vector was. He let Theron draw him in, let the other man control the kiss, feeling the way Theron’s own anger and fear fuelled his passion. Miranza was right: Theron Shan would have made a terrible Jedi, and a truly _exquisite_ Sith.

Vector pulled away from Theron long enough to move to the medbay door and palmed it closed. No doubt Rekka would be far too busy piloting the shuttle to notice what the two of them were up to, but he wasn’t in the mood for distractions or interruptions, and it seemed a little discourteous to leave the door open. No doubt the noises he intended for Theron to make would be somewhat distracting to her, as well.

Returning to where Theron still sat up on the bench, Vector hooked his fingers around the other man’s belt and used it to haul him forward, towards the edge of the seat. When he kissed Theron again it was a hard, desperate thing, and he poured all the anguish and fear and rage he had been feeling into it, making Theron moan into his mouth. Hands curled around Theron’s belt, he dragged the other man closer to him and wedged his thigh between Theron’s legs, pulling him in until their bodies were pressed tight together. There was no mistaking Theron’s interest as he ground himself against Vector’s thigh.

“What do you want, Theron?” Vector murmured against Theron’s lips.

Theron seemed to understand immediately what he was asking, for his reply was simply, “Whatever you want to do to me.”

Swallowing heavily, Vector pressed his forehead against Theron’s, kissing him again before saying, “We’re not in the mood for gentleness, love.”

“Good,” Theron assured him, his own hands tugging impatiently at the fastenings on Vector’s jacket, trying to gain access to skin. “You’re angry. Show me.”

Vector groaned and closed his eyes. They were no strangers to rough sex – all three of them were more than willing to experiment in the bedroom. (Or the living room. Or the back room of a cantina. Pretty much anywhere, truth be told. He’d once coupled with Miranza in a dark alleyway and if that had been all that had availed him and Theron now then by all means Vector would have made use of the location again, because stars, the wanting – _it did not stop._ ) But normally there was a discussion beforehand; normally, Vector established the rules with Theron and Miranza before starting anything. He had to: he was so much stronger and more resilient than they were, and it would be so incredibly easy for him to really hurt one of them. And they both had been through some truly horrendous experiences that made dabbling with restraints and pain somewhat risky. Vector didn’t want to trigger panic attacks or upset his partners in any way, and he was just as happy to engage in gentle, affectionate sex as he was the rough stuff.

But gentle, affectionate sex was not what Theron was asking for now, and Force help him, Vector was inclined to indulge him.

Grabbing the front of Theron’s shirt in both hands Vector gave a violent tug and the fabric split easily down the middle, exposing a smooth, muscled torso a few shades darker than Vector’s own. He used his grip on the ruined shirt to yank Theron closer, his mouth closing around the juncture where Theron’s neck met his shoulder, and he bit him there, capturing the skin between his teeth until Theron let out a gasp and writhed under him. Vector kissed and licked at the same spot, worrying at the skin until it reddened and he could see the marks his teeth left behind. He pulled the remains of Theron’s shirt free and tossed it onto the floor at his feet, letting his heated gaze rake over the other man’s body. Shorter and stockier than Vector, with darker skin and a smattering of dark, curly hair across his chest, Theron was fit and lean and muscled, and Vector knew every inch of him as well as he knew himself.

Impatient, Theron began tugging at Vector’s belt, fingers fumbling with the clasp before Vector batted his hands away. Instead, Vector grabbed at Theron’s belt again and used it to haul Theron off the bench, spinning him and shoving him face-first up against the wall.

“Hands up, palms flat on the wall,” he growled into Theron’s ear, nipping at his earlobe. Whether it was the bite or the husky element in Vector’s voice, Theron shuddered with anticipation and did as he was told.

Vector wasted no time, quickly unfastening Theron’s belt and yanking it loose of the belt-loops before dropping it on the floor with his shirt. Palming Theron through the crotch of his pants, Vector swallowed again as he felt the evidence of the other man’s desire rising up hard against his hand. He unbuttoned Theron’s pants and reached inside, delighting in the rough gasp Theron made when his fingers curled around his cock. Giving the other man a few long, lazy strokes, Vector crowded in close, his fully clothed body pushing up against Theron’s partially naked one. When Theron’s hips bucked, trying to gain more friction, Vector made a _tsk_ -ing noise and released him to focus on stripping him out of his trousers and briefs. When Theron was fully naked Vector stepped away to quickly rummage through the cabinets, ignoring the other man’s protests at being left alone.

It took him a few seconds but Vector found a small container of lube in one of the drawers and carried it back to where Theron still leaned up against the wall. Tossing the lube within reach on the nearby bench, Vector turned his focus towards stripping out of his own clothing, and was rewarded with a small needy sigh from Theron when he stepped back in behind him. Theron’s hands slid down a few inches on the wall and Vector gave a warning slap to his buttocks, making him jump and gasp at the same time. He found he rather liked the faint imprint of his hand across Theron’s skin, so he gave him a few more light slaps, admiring the way Theron’s ass reddened.

“That’s for worrying us,” he said softly, leaning in and trailing his lips down the nape of Theron’s neck, down the smooth expanse of his back and finally kissing the marks his hand had left behind. Theron shivered, his skin prickling with gooseflesh.

Theron’s hands slipped again – Vector could see the faint trembling in his arms as he strained to keep himself in position – and, straightening, Vector grabbed him by the wrists and pushed him against the wall, pinning him in place. He waited a moment, eyes on Theron’s face, trying to gauge his reaction – _too far?_ – not wanting to push Theron beyond what the other man was comfortable with. But Theron’s eyes were heavy-lidded with desire and his breath was coming in pants, and when he licked his lips Vector knew his lover was fully on board.

He released Theron’s wrists and instead brought one hand down to encircle the back of Theron’s neck, strong fingers gripping tightly enough to hold him in place. Again Vector waited a heartbeat, taking in the subtle shifts and swirls in Theron’s aura, the rosy hues that told him everything he needed to know about how Theron was feeling. His free hand snaked down Theron’s back before drifting towards his front, and the long, low moan that Theron let out when he curled his fingers around his cock again was music to Vector’s ears.

Removing his hand from Theron’s neck, Vector leaned over and grabbed the lube off the bench, awkwardly opening the container one-handed while still keeping his other hand wrapped around Theron’s cock. The lube was cold as he smeared it onto his fingers, and Theron jumped when those cold, slicked fingers probed between his cheeks. He let out another moan as Vector began to open him up, his forehead pressing against the wall as his eyes fluttered shut. The sounds he was making as Vector fucked him with his fingers – first one, then two, and then finally three, scissoring them in and out – went straight to Vector’s groin, and it was all the Joiner could do to restrain himself from just shoving the other man up against the wall and fucking him silly.

Vector could feel Theron straining against him and knew the other man was getting close. Wanting to be inside him before that happened, Vector slid his fingers out before slowly, carefully guiding his cock in their place. Theron shuddered, tensing briefly and then relaxing again, and then Vector snapped his hips forward and buried himself to the hilt.

Theron had asked for Vector’s anger and he got it. The angle wasn’t quite right, not with Theron shoved against the wall, but Vector made it work, fucking the other man with hard, rapid thrusts that stopped just short of being painful as his hand worked in time with his hips. Vector’s other hand went up, his fingers twisting through Theron’s short dark hair so that he could wrench his head back and kiss him hungrily. Lips crashed and tongues tangled and Vector could taste Theron’s cries in his mouth.

Theron came first, spilling over Vector’s fingers, his knees buckling with the force of his orgasm. Vector kept him upright, one hand still tangled in his hair, releasing his cock so that he could wrap his arm around Theron’s chest and keep him pinned. He wasn’t far behind, the spasms of Theron’s orgasm and the sound of Theron’s cries enough to bring him over the edge, and he came, hard, his teeth closing around Theron’s shoulder nearly hard enough to break the skin.

Then it was over and he was pulling out, kissing Theron and soothing away the marks he’d left. Theron was drowsy-lidded, lips swollen, face flushed, the picture of debauchery and _stars_ if he hadn’t just come Vector would be ready to take him again. It really, truly did not stop, this wanting.

Theron opened his mouth, no doubt to apologize for worrying Vector, or to make some other comment regarding what had just happened on Corellia. Vector put a finger to the other man’s lips and shook his head, unwilling to let go of this moment just yet.

“We shall discuss it back at the safe house,” he said, and Theron nodded, lips closing around Vector’s finger.

Overhead the speaker crackled to life, and Rekka’s voice called out to them: “I’m really gonna need you guys to put your pants back on before we land.”

Vector ducked his head in a laugh, his cheeks flushing, as Theron hit the comm button with his hand, his own shoulders shaking in laughter.

“Copy that, Nexu Four,” he said, making no effort to disguise the humour in his voice. “We’ll … uh … We’ll get right on that.”

Rekka’s snort of amusement was her only answer, but Vector felt it spoke volumes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from "Bad Motherfucker" by Biting Elbows (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the music video for this song - it's extremely well-choreographed). The full line is "I'm only here for myself/I've got a big fuck you for everybody else/Not only empty but empty and loud/I wonder if my father is proud" which felt ... oddly appropriate.
> 
> Mandalorian:  
>  _Aruetii_ Outsider, foreigner, traitor (in this instance, used to mean 'outsider')


	14. Transmission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Jace have a chat. Theron demonstrates poor coping skills. Miranza receives a get-well card.
> 
> (In other words, Crumpet takes all the fluffy, happy feelings from previous chapters and stomps all over them.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for implied alcoholism, suicidal behaviour, self-harm, non-graphic non-consent, psychological torture. I think there's maybe one fleeting nice thing in this entire chapter.

**The Mercurial, _En Route from Corellia, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_**

Theron sat on the edge of the bed in the captain’s quarters on board the _Mercurial_ , his hands resting flat on his thighs as he stared at the commlink on the desk. The room was familiar and comforting, but he questioned the wisdom of contacting his father from a space that bore so many reminders of his relationship with Vector and Miranza. He worried Jace would think he was trying to flaunt his relationship, trying to throw it in his face by contacting him in the same room where he slept side by side with the two Imperials – a room that had so many little signs that would indicate it was shared with two people Jace Malcom most assuredly did not approve of. It used to be that neither Theron nor Miranza personalized their space: no pictures, no little clues that could give them away to an enemy. Nowadays, though, those precautions were no longer necessary, and so there were many such clues: from the picture on the desk of the three of them smiling and laughing into the camera, to the clothing folded on a nearby chair, to the assortment of cosmetics and accessories they used.

He could have turned the visual off and had this conversation with his father through the audio channel alone. He could have commed Jace from the conference room, instead of from the bedroom. Either of those options felt cowardly, however, and if there was one thing that Theron Shan was not, it was a coward. If the reminders of his relationship with Vector and Miranza were sufficient to make Jace cut him off entirely, well, then … so be it. He wasn’t about to hide them from the world.

Not anymore.

Scratching at the edge of the bandage around his upper arm – the wound itched as it healed – Theron leaned forward and hit the ‘connect’ button on the commlink. He had to sit through a few alerts, wondering if his father was deliberately ignoring him this time, but then the call connected and the visual feed picked up, revealing the flickering blue image of a harried-looking Jace Malcom.

“ _You’re all right._ ” Was Theron imaging things, or did his father actually sound relieved?

Theron nodded, indicating his bandaged right arm. “Just a scratch. You?”

“ _Nothing major._ ” Jace shrugged, glancing down at something in his lap. His expression shifted, becoming grim. “ _Seven people were injured, Theron, not including you and I. Two of them were children, three of them were soldiers. No fatalities to report, but one of the kids is critical. What the_ hell _were you thinking_?”

Blinking in confusion, Theron stared at his father through the holocomm, wishing they were face to face so that he could get a better read on the man. He was missing too much: body language, micro-expressions, even some of Jace’s tone was distorted by the staticky comm connection. So, too, did he wish he could see what his father was looking down at – some kind of datapad, perhaps? A report on the damages to the restaurant, the people, the state of affairs on Corellia? Anything that could explain why it appeared that Jace was laying the blame for this catastrophe squarely at Theron’s feet.

“What was _I_ thinking?” Theron repeated, trying and failing to keep the anger and frustration from his voice. “What, did you think I had something to do with this? I came to Corellia to talk to you, not to put a bolt through your chest!”

“ _What am I supposed to think, Theron?_ ” Jace folded his arms across his chest. “ _I question your loyalties, and the next thing I know someone’s taking pot-shots at me? And you, you had enough time to act – are you telling me you didn’t see it coming?_ ”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much _exactly_ what I’m telling you, Jace.” The impulse to cross his own arms over his chest was strong, but Theron forced himself to keep his hands on his legs and not to mirror his father’s stance. Crossing his arms would be seen as defensive; he _was_ feeling defensive, but not because he was in the wrong. Never in his life would he have thought he’d be accused of attempted murder just because he had fast reflexes. “I saw the red dot on your chest. I acted. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”

“ _So you’re telling me your Imp girlfriend had nothing to do with this?_ ”

Theron closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over the bridge of his nose. He could feel the headache starting. He’d been expecting it. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen to use their bedroom for this call instead of the conference room. He wanted to tell Jace that he was completely certain Miranza had nothing to do with the attempt on his life because she had been in no condition to climb a ruined skyscraper and snipe at his father – but he didn’t want to give away how badly injured Miranza had been. If Jace really had tried to have Miranza killed, Theron didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how close he’d come to succeeding.

Besides that, as hurt as she was, Theron wasn’t _entirely_ sure that Miranza wouldn’t have been capable of taking the shot. She was good at doing what needed to be done.

They both were.

Capable or not, however, Theron couldn’t imagine Miranza shooting into a crowded patio, no matter how angry she might have been over the attempt on her life. And the thing was, she _wasn’t_ angry. Not at Jace, not at Theron, not at anyone. She was just … resigned. As though this was just one more shitty thing she had to deal with, on top of a pile of other equally shitty things. She put up a good front, but to Theron she seemed just a little bit ... defeated.

Stars, he needed a drink.

“We had nothing to do with this, Jace,” Theron said finally, deciding to ignore the “Imp girlfriend” comment and lump himself and Vector in with Miranza instead. Because it was the truth: none of them had been involved in shooting at Jace. “I don’t know who was behind it, but you’ve gotta admit, you’ve made a lot more enemies than just us.”

The moment the words left his mouth he realized that had been the wrong thing to say – that he was, explicitly, telling his father that they were now enemies. It hadn’t been what he’d meant, not even in the slightest, but Theron saw Jace’s eyes widen and his expression harden, and he knew the chances of getting anything useful out of the conversation had just dropped pretty much to zero.

“ _So it’s true, then,_ ” Jace said. His voice had an awful rasp to it, a note of finality Theron had never heard before. “ _You really_ are _choosing them over us. Over the Republic. Over your family._ ”

Theron’s jaw dropped and before he could stop himself he burst out, “ _What family?!_ You mean you, me and Satele? You and me, we’ve known each other for five years. We met when I was twenty-six. Satele, well, she fucked off without telling anyone – not like it matters, not like she and I have a relationship, anyway – and you … Camping out by my bedside in the med centre does not make you my dad. Ngani Zho was the closest thing I had to a father, and he’s dead, and you … You are _not_ him. I don’t have a family, Jace – you and Satele saw to that, decades before I ever met either one of you, so fuck you if you think I owe either of you any loyalty on account of genetics or biology or whatever the fuck you want to call it. We both know I’m a big fucking mistake as far as the two of you are concerned, so don’t –”

“ _I don’t think you’re a mistake, Theron,_ ” Jace interrupted him, sounding pained. “ _Is that what you think? Is that what this is, this thing with your Imps? Are you just trying to get back at me for –_ ”

“Go to hell, Jace,” Theron cut him off. He was suddenly exhausted. Exhausted and world-weary in a way he hadn’t felt since he’d first landed on Alderaan, years ago, after he and Miranza had freed themselves from the Star Cabal. She’d put herself through hell to save him and they’d barely even known each other back then. Jace had no right to claim Theron’s relationship with her and Vector was just some kind of juvenile stunt to elicit a response from his parents. Miranza and Vector had done more to save him than anyone else in the galaxy, and what he had with them was _real._ Not a stunt, not an attempt at a guilt trip - _real_ and good and healthy for him in a way no other relationship had ever been. “This has nothing to do with you, or Satele, or the Republic, just like me quitting the SIS and leaving Republic space has nothing to do with you. I’m doing what needs to be done to try and stop Arcann.”

“ _Then what? Once Arcann’s defeated – assuming you and your friends even can defeat him – what then? You’ll come back to the Republic? Back to the SIS?_ ”

“I don’t know.” And that was the Force-honest truth: Theron really and truly had no idea what his game plan was after Caedan was released and Arcann finally defeated. Did he intend to come back to the Republic? Could he really picture himself working for the SIS again, answering to Trant and whoever replaced Saresh’s flunky on the Senate?

Could he really leave Vector and Miranza?

He didn’t know. He had no kriffing idea.

Jace seemed to study him through the holocomm, the scars on his face twisting and tightening. Theron thought he could see the pain in his father’s eyes, but he was afraid he was reading too much into the older man’s expression. If Jace was upset Theron was certain it had more to do with the perceived betrayal of his son abandoning the Republic, rather than any emotional consideration he might have had for Theron as a person. If Jace thought all of this – his relationship with Vector and Miranza, his decision to team up with Lana Beniko to hunt down the Outlander and fight Zakuul, his choice to walk away from the SIS and the Republic – was just a stunt to get back at his parents for abandoning him, Theron really had no clue how to change his mind. Anything he said would be twisted to fit Jace’s misperceptions, and they really didn’t know each other well enough for his father to get a better idea into how Theron thought. But honestly, after everything Theron had done, how could Jace possibly think he would turn traitor so easily?

“Did you really try to have Miranza killed?” Theron asked him finally, trying and likely failing to keep the pain out of his voice and off his face.

Shaking his head slowly, Jace sighed, his shoulders heaving. “ _No. That trap wasn’t meant to be fatal. She’s too valuable a target. And …_ ” He hesitated, then, with another sigh, continued, “ _You’d never forgive me if I killed her.”_

 _You’re right about that,_ Theron thought, but he kept his mouth shut. There was no point in stating the obvious, and it felt like Jace's reasoning - like his decision not to kill Miranza had more to do with sparing Theron than her value as an Imperial target - was the real truth of the matter. Jace had spared her because of Theron. Jace had also tried to hurt her ... because of Theron.

“Then somebody messed with that trap,” Theron said instead, his mind racing a million miles an hour. “And somebody took a shot at you – at us. Somebody wants us at odds. Somebody wants us thinking we’re enemies, that we’re trying to kill each other. Who?”

He saw the obstinate look on his father’s face and knew Jace was immediately thinking the Empire, but the older man didn’t say anything out loud. The Empire – not Miranza, Vector or Lana specifically – could certainly be responsible, but to what end? The Republic? Saresh? Who would benefit from Theron and Jace being at odds? _Zakuul?_ How could the Eternal Empire even know about his relation to Jace Malcom?

What the kriff was going on?

The worst part was, it was working. Whoever it was, whatever their angle was, they were playing Jace Malcom like a fiddle, and Theron wasn’t falling too far behind when it came to paranoia. Jace wanted his enemies to be the Empire because it had _been_ the Empire his entire life. Theron found it ridiculously easy to believe his father – the man he barely knew – would choose to betray him, especially if that betrayal meant getting a strike on against the Empire as well. And there was no chance Theron would be able to convince his father that Miranza wasn’t still an Imperial agent, that she was working with Lana – another Imperial – to benefit the galaxy as a whole. Whoever it was doing this, they knew Theron and they knew Jace, and that had to mean that one or both of them had an insider within their organizations.

Theron’s organization was six people, give or take. Jace’s organization was the entire Force-be-damned Republic.

“ _We’re still combing the scene on Corellia,_ ” Jace said, after a few seconds of consideration. “ _If we uncover anything, I’ll let you know._ ” Theron recognized the offer for the olive branch that it was, and he nodded.

Jace fell silent again, looking down at his lap. Theron thought this time he was studying his hands, rather than a datapad. His face was still, impassive, but when he lifted his head again Theron could see the hope in the older man’s eyes.

“ _When this is over, son, we need to talk,_ ” Jace said, voice soft. “ _In the meantime, though … I gotta tell you … You need to know …_ ” He floundered for a bit, clearly struggling with something, before finally saying, “ _I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Theron, but you were never one of them._ ”

Before Theron could find an appropriate response Jace cut the connection between them. The blue light flickering from the holocomm disappeared, plunging the bedroom into near-darkness. For a moment Theron let his head drop into his hands and he rubbed his hands through his hair, all but digging his nails into his scalp. Then, sighing, he stood up and walked over to his dresser, yanking open the bottom drawer. Tucked under a heap of clothing he practically never wore – sweaters and long-sleeved shirts, mostly – was a bottle of whiskey he’d been saving for a rainy day.

Bottle in hand, Theron sank down onto the floor and leaned back against the bed. No sense in wasting a glass when he had no intentions of sharing this bottle with anyone. His gaze darted to the chronometer on the wall and he felt a brief start at the realization that it wasn’t even noon yet, but stars, after _that_ chat with his father who could blame him for wanting a drink?

Theron brought the bottle to his lips and took a sip, savouring the smooth burn of the whiskey as it lit a fiery path towards his gut. He promised himself he’d just drink enough to take the edge off and then he’d put the bottle back in its ( _not hiding place, don’t say hiding place, that sounds like you’re trying to be sneaky about it, you're not, you've got nothing to hide, you're an adult you can do what you want_ ) spot to save for later.

He was still feeling that edge when he tucked the empty bottle away.

O o O o O

__  
**Safe House, New Plympto, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion**  


 _Heard you were under the weather._ The front of the card had a comically cartoonish picture of what looked like a baby gizka looking sad and holding an umbrella. She opened the card and a dataspike fell out, into her lap. The inside of the card had the same baby gizka smiling and dancing under the sun, with the caption _Cheer up, buttercup!_ in bright, happy letters. There was no personalized message inside and no signature, but Miranza had a sneaking suspicion she knew who the card was from.

The card had been left in a dead drop on Corellia, tucked in among other messages for her. Vector had retrieved it when he, Rekka and Theron had returned from Theron’s ill-fated meeting with his father, and he’d left the bundle of datapads, flimsi and dataspikes for Miranza to go through when she was feeling up to it. She hadn’t noticed the card until she’d started filtering through the items, and it had slid out and landed on her lap, the sad-faced gizka staring up at her from surprisingly soulful empty eye sockets. She couldn’t decide whether it was cute or horrifying.

Turning the dataspike over in her hands, Miranza considered her options. The smart thing to do would probably be to tell Theron and Vector about the message she’d received from Amrielle and let them help her sort it out. The thing was, though, she really had no other information to go on – she didn’t know how Amrielle had managed to track her down, she didn’t know what the woman’s game plan was, and she didn’t know what she wanted. And both Theron and Vector had a lot on their minds lately, what with the fallout from the attempted hit on Jace Malcom and Vector still not really being over Ziost (not to mention Zakuul, Nar Shaddaa, Belsavis and Corellia). It seemed selfish to bother them before she had any details to give them, and collecting intel was her job; she didn’t need them to help her.

Besides, they’d just worry, and Miranza was tired of Theron and Vector worrying about her.

She had a slicer ally – _friend_ was too strong a word for her relationship with the shifty little Rodian, but the man did good work – investigating the datapad she had received from Amrielle, but he hadn’t gotten back to her yet. She wasn’t expecting anything, really, but if Amrielle had left any trace of her whereabouts Miranza trusted Fildo to find it. She should just give the dataspike to him as well.

She connected the dataspike to the console, watching as the screen booted up. Her heart felt too fast in her chest and her hands were tingling.

The screen filled with static, then cleared, revealing what she suspected had been a hidden holorecorder tucked up in the corner of a ‘fresher. The image was in black and white and appeared rather grainy, but Miranza thought she recognized that ‘fresher, that she had been there before. The shot was focused on the sink; she could just make out the door of the shower stall to the left. Yes, she knew it, she’d been there, it was –

The ‘fresher door opened and Miranza watched as Theron hurried inside, barely making it to the toilet before hunching over and – she thought, it was hard to tell from this angle – throwing up. He was naked to the waist and even with the grainy quality of the recording she could see faint cuts and bruises on his bare torso, and a thin sheen of sweat covering his back. He stood, squaring his shoulders, and faced the mirror over the sink. There was no sound, but Miranza could read his lips in the mirror: _I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t._ Over and over again, like a mantra.

He was on Corellia. This was the ‘fresher in the penthouse suite, where Samar had kept him prisoner, where she had been trapped, where –

To Miranza’s horror, Theron slammed his fist into the mirror and picked up one of the jagged pieces of glass. He held it up, studying it; she watched him turn it over in his hands, much as she had just done with the dataspike. Then he lifted the shard and brought it up to his throat, and Miranza – despite knowing Theron had survived this, despite knowing that he was safe with her and Vector – found herself crying out to him as if by doing so she could somehow stop his desperate actions.

Theron’s hand stopped, the sharp glass just brushing his throat, not breaking the skin. She could see the conflict and desperation on his face, could see the way his hand shook with the effort to move it – but he couldn’t. He was desperate and broken and he wanted to die, and he _could not do it_ because the conditioning prevented him from causing irreparable damage to himself.

Blood splattered from his palm, splashing into the basin of the sink. It looked black and inky, its colour made more sinister by the monochromatic footage. Theron’s hand opened – she could see the cuts the broken glass had left behind – and he let the shard fall into the sink. He shook his head a few times as if trying to clear it, then jerked, his face turning towards the door as if in response to something he’d heard outside. His shoulders shook, but he straightened, lips pressed together in a hard, thin line. She watched his lips move again and this time knew she was seeing him recite the Jedi Code. He squared his shoulders again and exited the ‘fresher.

When had that happened? When Miranza had been in the penthouse suite, the mirror over the ‘fresher sink had been pristine; there’d been no trace it had ever been damaged or replaced. And she couldn’t remember seeing any scars on Theron’s hands to indicate he’d cut himself. ( _To indicate that he’d tried to kill himself,_ Miranza thought, the words twisting a knife in her heart.)

The image shifted, the quality of the recording improving dramatically: instead of black and white it was in full colour, and the grainy appearance had given way to crystal clarity. This time she recognized the bedroom suite where she and Theron had been held captive. She’d known there were likely cameras everywhere, but she hadn’t found this one: slightly above and to the left of the bed – on the bookshelf, probably? Hidden inside a vase or a book? The holorecorder had clearly been put there for the express purpose of recording what happened on the bed, and Miranza strongly suspected it had been for Samar’s own personal use rather than because the Star Cabal was particularly interested in making amateur pornography.

This time, she knew exactly when this recording had been taken, because she was in it. In fact, she featured rather heavily, and the sight of herself – naked, sprawled on her back on the bed – made her stomach turn. Samar was between her legs; she’d had bruises on her thighs for days. And Theron –

_Oh, there’s sound. Lovely._

She could hear Samar giving Theron instructions, every single sentence starting out with _“Keyword: Atychiphobia”_ followed by the incredibly descriptive things Samar wanted Theron to do to her. Samar had been very … explicit … in his directions. He’d acted like he and Theron were sharing her, like this was some kind of act of love between them all. He’d acted like she and Theron had _wanted_ this.

Bile rose in Miranza’s throat and she staggered into the ‘fresher, barely making it to the toilet before losing the contents of her stomach. There wasn’t much to lose; she’d only had a cup of tea and some crackers that morning.

When she made it back to the tiny bedroom the scene had changed; she was gone and it was just Theron and Samar, up close and very, very intimate in a way that had her stomach clenching again. The holorecorder was close on Theron’s face, and she could see how his lips were swollen, his eyes glassy and dull. He had bruises she didn’t remember – was this from before her capture? Were the scenes playing out of order?

Samar’s fingers tangled in Theron’s hair, pulling his head up, away from – Miranza swallowed, hard, and clenched her hands into fists. Samar was smirking, his eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure. His hand on Theron’s face was gentle, almost … tender?

“ _Tell me you love me,_ ” Samar said, stroking Theron’s cheek, just above one of the dark bruises. Miranza choked, feeling the bile burning the back of her throat.

Theron’s expression was hard, closed off. His voice sounded like he’d been swallowing glass. “ _Are you fucking_ joking –”

Samar’s own face went dark, and Miranza could see the way Theron flinched away, even as the bastard’s fingers were twisting through his hair. Then, in a voice filled with deceptive calm, Samar said, “ _Keyword: Atychiphobia – tell me you love me, and make me believe it._ ”

Theron’s face – oh, stars, _his face_ – went completely blank, all the lines of anger and pain fading, smoothing out. His hazel eyes softened and his lips twitched, quirking up at the corners of his mouth in the faintest semblance of a smile. Miranza’s fingernails dug into her palms and her stomach did another slow roll. Stars, she’d seen him make that face – at her. At Vector. She’d seen him look at _her_ like that.

Theron’s voice was low and filled with careless affection as he said the words he’d said a hundred times or more to her and Vector: “ _I love you._ ”

Samar sighed happily before pushing Theron’s head back down. Wet sounds filled the air, combining with Samar's moans, leaving Miranza zero doubts about what he was making Theron do.

Miranza’s heart fluttered. It felt too big for her chest and it beat too quickly. She placed a hand on her chest, feeling the pounding beneath her fingertips. The room felt too close, the air too hot, too … too stifling. She couldn’t – she – 

Amrielle’s face filled the screen. It was hard to judge her expression, but to Miranza she looked smug and ridiculously pleased with herself. And why not, when she’d just dropped not one but two painful revelations on Miranza: the first, that Theron had been suicidal before she’d arrived – that he had, in fact, made at least one attempt to end his life; the second, that Samar had used Theron’s keyword for … for _this._ The rape, the torture – that had been bad enough, but to compel Theron to say he loved him? Theron, of all of them, had such a hard time admitting his feelings and for him to have been forced to say something he didn’t feel …

Miranza slapped her hand to her mouth, willing her stomach to calm itself. On screen, Amrielle preened and smiled, her dark eyes glittering.

“ _Finally, dear Miranza, my get-well present to you: the location of the Outlander, Caedan Savarr._ ” Miranza’s head snapped up, and Amrielle continued speaking, divulging the coordinates of a facility on Zakuul where Emperor Arcann was storing the Jedi Master in carbonite. Amrielle’s smiled turned coy as she continued, “ _You’ll want to investigate my sources yourself, of course, so I’ve included them in this dataspike. You’ll find it all there: his coordinates, the location of the facility, everything. You see, I think what you’re doing is admirable, Miranza. The galaxy needs Master Savarr; we need him to stop Emperor Arcann and the Eternal Throne. I believe you can accomplish this. Oh, but there’s a catch.”_

 _Of course there’s a catch,_ Miranza thought bitterly, staring down at her hands. Her nails had left bloody imprints in her palms; she barely felt it. Her heart was still beating too fast and she felt dizzy. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to _not be._

 _“The catch is, once you have Master Savarr, the gloves are off, and I’ll come looking for you._ ” There was no mistaking it: Amrielle’s smile was a smirk, and there was smug satisfaction in her voice. “ _There’s a Sith lord on Dromund Kaas – a close associate of Empress Acina, if rumours are to be believed – who has a collection of pets she keeps, a sort of harem. She’ll absolutely adore Theron Shan – the son of the former Grand Master of the Jedi Order and the head of the Republic military? He’d be such a coup for her, and he’s so … pretty. She has quite the reputation for sadism. She’ll make Samar and Alric Ulgo look like saints by comparison. As for Vector Hyllus, I intend to sell him to the Eternal Championship. He’ll make a fine gladiator – assuming, of course, he’d be willing to kill to save his own skin. I don’t think he will be, though, do you? I can’t imagine him taking an innocent life, but I suppose he could surprise me. I haven’t decided what I’ll do to you, yet, Miranza. Alric and Hunter are dead, so I can’t give you to them. I thought about handing you over to Arcann, but I don’t want to run the risk of him breaking you and putting a stop to your little rebellion. Oh, well, I’m_ sure _I’ll think of something appropriate._ ”

Amrielle licked her lips, her black eyes focused on the recorder; to Miranza it felt like the Nautolan woman could see into her soul.

“ _So that’s the deal, Miranza: you can find and rescue Master Savarr, and pit him against Emperor Arcann to save the galaxy – and I’ll come after you. I_ will _find you, and I will make your last days in this life a perfect hell. Or you can leave Master Savarr alone, forget your rebellion and let the galaxy rot – and you and your boys will be safe. Well, as safe as anyone is, in this new Eternal Empire. I think I already know what your choice will be, and I do look forward to seeing you again very soon._ ”

Amrielle’s face faded from view, replaced with another up-close shot of Theron, cradled in Samar’s arms. The recording was focused on their faces, with nothing visible below their chins, but from the angles and the … motions … and … sounds … Miranza had a fairly good idea what was happening. She heard Samar give the keyword and command again. She watched Theron’s face go tense, then slack again, and his eyes found Samar’s. There it was again: that same look he gave her and Vector, directed at Samar.

“ _I love you,_ ” Theron said, in the same voice he used with her.

Amrielle’s voice came on over the recording, filled with curiosity: “ _He’s so good at faking sincerity, isn’t he, Miranza? How can you believe a single word that comes out of his beautiful, lying mouth?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Transmission" is by the Canadian band, the Tea Party.


	15. My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spies being spies: witty banter, a spot of action, and one heaping dose of denial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild trigger warning for (fake) domestic violence.

_**Zakuul, Three Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Another night, another fancy dress party on Zakuul, this time in the military history museum adjacent to the administrative wing of the Knights of Zakuul headquarters. Sometimes Theron had to wonder if all the fancy parties were just Miranza’s way of getting him and Vector into suits and tuxedos, because she made no effort to disguise the effect their appearance had on her. Granted, he would have been willing to dance around in a “Kiss the Cook” apron wearing a flower crown on his head if that’s what the woman wanted, and he knew Vector felt the same way. Of course, Vector looked spectacular in a tux, so Theron couldn’t really blame Miranza for wanting _him_ all dolled up.

Theron thought he cleaned up rather nicely himself, although he didn’t feel much of a match for Vector Hyllus in all his sartorial glory. He was wearing a dark grey – almost, but not quite black – suit with dark red highlights (‘garnet,’ according to Vector), bought new to replace the one he’d had destroyed the last time they’d been to a party on Zakuul. When he’d finished dressing himself both Miranza and Vector were giving him appreciative, almost predatory looks and Miranza had lamented the fact that she would be missing the opportunity to watch him in action, so Theron assumed that meant he looked good. Vector’s suit was a midnight blue so dark it was possible to miss the black pinstripes, and damn if the sight of him didn’t make Theron’s mouth go dry. Frankly, he would have much rather skipped the party and gone straight to the after-party – by which he meant him, Vector, Miranza and maybe a bottle of that sparkling wine that made her giggle and forget about the galaxy for a while. Kriff, skip the wine, too, and just get to the part where they’re tearing their clothes off each other.

Theron sighed, helping himself to some hors d'oeuvres as a waiter stepped by carrying a tray laden with dainty little bite-sized foods he didn’t know the names to. Miranza might have an appreciation for Zakuulan architecture and Vector might enjoy the art, but Theron _loved_ the food. This particular bit of puff pastry had an unexpected kick to it, so the next tray he helped himself to was the one bearing tall, fluted glasses of champagne; he snagged two glasses, downing the first one quickly to cancel out the burning in his mouth before taking his time with the second. He was on the clock, but a few glasses of high-end wine wouldn’t be enough to get him even a little bit buzzed, never mind drunk.

Munching on a second pastry – this one sweet and nutty rather than spicy – Theron eased his way through the crowd. Unlike his last time ‘enjoying’ a Zakuulan party, this time around this was a high-end, classy affair where socialites mingled with military officials and disapproving Scions. There was a small criminal contingent, of course – power called to power, in Theron’s experience, and where you found high society and bureaucracy mingling, you were sure to find the upper echelons of the underworld as well – but tonight they weren’t Theron’s target. Tonight the job was for Vector to acquire the code cylinders that would let them access the secured administrative wing so that Theron could slice the computers to find schematics for the treasury vault where Emperor Arcann kept his most prized possessions.

Among those possessions, according to a source of Miranza’s, was the Outlander. Contrary to what Arcann had claimed, Jedi Master Caedan Savarr hadn’t been executed for the assassination of Emperor Valkorion; instead, he had been frozen in carbonite and locked away in the treasury. Theron didn’t know what Arcann’s plan was – or if the man even _had_ a plan – but breaking into a treasury and stealing a carbonite statue definitely fell within Theron’s skillset.

Theron nabbed another glass of wine and raised it in a mock toast. Things were starting to finally come together. He downed the glass and set it on a nearby table, beside an unfinished plate of canapés. Crossing the room, he came to a stop in front of a painting depicting some scene from Zakuulan mythology – Vector would have been able to tell Theron what he was looking at and could probably have named the artistic style and the artist, as well as referred him to other notable works in the same theme – and activated the comm built into his implants.

“How’s the view?” he asked, his lips barely moving and his voice no more than a whisper.

“ _From here? Splendid._ ” Vector’s dryly humorous voice came over the comms, filled with subtle emphasis. “ _Have we extolled the virtues of your backside lately, love? Particularly in your tuxedo?_ ”

Theron felt his cheeks heat up, but kept his eyes focused on the painting even as he knew the tips of his ears were turning red. “You have, but by all means feel free to continue.”

“ _No flirting over the comms, boys,_ ” Miranza scolded them, although Theron could hear her warm amusement. While Theron and Vector worked the party Miranza was camped out in a nearby safe house, handling comms, security and information. Normally Theron would have been the one in the safe house, since Miranza was good but he was by far the better slicer, but they were taking her return to the field slowly and cautiously, and all three of them agreed that she would be safer off-site. “ _Some of us are trying to work.”_

 _“Are we distracting you, beloved?_ ” Vector replied, sounding mischievous. Theron could see him standing by the bar, a tumbler raised to his lips to disguise their movement. He was, for the moment, alone although he’d made a crowd of new friends since his arrival. It was impossible to see his dark eyes behind the glasses he wore – that was the point, after all – but Theron thought the Joiner was glancing in his direction, and the weight of his appraising gaze was a palpable thing that brought more heat to his cheeks … among other places. The husky rasp of his voice was certainly contributing to the sudden tightness in Theron’s pants, that was for certain. “ _We make no promises to behave ourselves.”_

 _“Mmhmm, you’ll pay for this later,_ ” Miranza responded, and there was a definite purr in her voice.

“ _Promises, promises, beloved._ ” Vector moved, pushing off from the bar and making his way into the crowd. He wasn’t quite making a beeline towards any specific target, but Theron quickly realized that the Joiner had spotted one of the people who had the code cylinders they needed and was meandering towards the man. To even Theron’s experienced gaze it appeared as though Vector was simply bumbling drunkenly through the crowd, drifting idly from one conversation to the next and blending in seamlessly the whole while. When he bumped into his target it was the most natural thing in the world: a tipsy stumble, a spilled drink and a series of overly-exaggerated apologies perfectly in keeping with his apparently intoxicated behaviour. Theron didn’t even see Vector make the snatch, but a few seconds later came the Joiner’s satisfied exhalation: “ _Success.”_

 _“Brilliant, darling. You’re brilliant._ ”

“What was that about flirting, Nexu Two?” Theron murmured, hiding his smile as he moved away from the painting and began heading – in his own meandering, seemingly-aimless pattern – towards Vector. He teased, but in truth Theron was pleased to hear how relaxed and cheerful Miranza sounded. He knew she was really struggling with the slow pace of her recovery, but these past few weeks she had seemed almost constantly on edge, and something about the trap on Belsavis had triggered all her bad memories from their time on Corellia. More than once she’d woken up, shaking and gasping, after a nightmare about Samar, and one time when she thought he wasn’t paying attention he’d caught her gazing at him as if trying to confirm whether or not he was real. He knew Vector was picking up on it, too – how could he not, given the fact the Joiner could see and feel Miranza’s aura as well as her facial expressions, body language and tone? – but they’d been giving her time and space, not wanting to push or pry. Theron could sympathize; he knew she was impatient to get back in the field and back to work, and besides, it wasn’t like he wasn’t _also_ dealing with some personal issues at the moment.

Theron lost Vector briefly in the crowd, and so he didn’t have to feign surprise when strong hands gripped the front of his tuxedo and hauled him into an unexpectedly fierce kiss. He caught a glimmer of apology on Vector’s face when the other man released him, and he staggered back a few steps, glancing about under lowered eyelashes to see who was paying attention. Everyone, from the looks of things. Good.

“I saw you!” Vector exclaimed, the singular pronoun taking Theron by surprise as much as the slurred speech itself; the word ‘saw’ came out sounding perilously close to ‘shawr’ and there was a hazy quality to Vector’s normally clear diction. The other man crowded in close again, fingers twisting in the fabric of Theron’s suit jacket, and to anyone who didn’t know better Vector looked positively livid. “Don’t try to deny it – I _saw_ you! Making a fool of me with everyone! Making eyes at any man who’ll have you!”

Theron made a creditable attempt at trying to free himself from Vector’s grasp; he saw one of Vector’s hands dip and barely felt it when the Joiner slid the code cylinders inside Theron’s jacket, tucking them into the pocket sewn there for safe keeping. Up close Theron could see the faint twitches at the corners of Vector’s mouth – he was trying not to laugh.

“Well, they won’t have you!” Vector continued, all drunken belligerence. He released Theron – code cylinders carefully passed on – and wagged a finger in his face. “You’re mine!” Grabbing at Theron’s jacket again, Vector gave the appearance of trying and failing to pull him in close again, and if Theron hadn’t known better he would have sworn the Joiner’s hands had gone clumsy and uncoordinated from too much alcohol. But Theron _did_ know better, and he was confident Vector hadn’t had more than a glass of wine, at most – enough to get the scent on him, if he drank a few sips and discreetly spilled a little on himself, but nowhere near enough to get someone with his enhanced stamina intoxicated.

Staggering backwards as if trying to duck under Vector’s reaching hands, Theron purposefully bumped up against the table behind him, knocking over a few empty glasses in the process. His cheeks were flaming – as much a response to the spectacle they were making as any real embarrassment on his part – and it was getting time for him to make a retreat. He could see the understanding on Vector’s face, followed by the briefest hint of pre-emptive apology – and then Vector was hauling back and punching him.

It was, as such things went, far from the hardest Theron had ever been hit, but he hadn’t been expecting it and wasn’t able to dodge, and he certainly didn’t need to fake his surprise. Jaw stinging – Miranza’s murmured “ _Incoming security at your six, Nexu One_ ” in his ear – Theron stumbled back, into the waiting arms of one incredibly uncomfortable security guard, just as two more guards converged on Vector.

Theron allowed himself to be ushered away from the scene, hearing Vector’s drunken shouts in the background – “I’m sorry! I love you! It’s fine, it’s fine, we’re not fighting, we love each other …” The security guard who had caught Theron led him out into the hallway, taking great pains to remove him from the prying eyes of the curious and titillated crowd. He had to trust that Vector would manage on his own.

The security guard was tall and big-boned, and Theron could practically feel the embarrassment dripping off of him at being called upon to break up a drunken domestic in the middle of a fancy ball. Once they were out in the hallway and the massive double doors closed behind them the guard reached inside his uniform jacket and withdrew a handkerchief, handing it to Theron and gesturing awkwardly towards his face.

 _Oh?_ “Oh.” Theron dabbed at the small scratch on his lip; he must have cut himself on his teeth when Vector punched him. He hadn’t even noticed. He hung his head, aiming for an abashed expression. “Thank you. I’m … I’m sorry, he’s not normally …”

“Deserve better than that,” the guard said, shrugging expansively. His eyes darted towards the doors and Theron got the impression the man wanted to get back to the party, but wasn’t sure whether it was safe to leave Theron alone or not. Theron hunched his shoulders, deliberately making himself seem as small and harmless as possible. “Look, your boyfriend’s probably gonna get turfed, so you should be safe to go back into the party if you want. Or …” He floundered, looking around desperately for an exit, apparent decency warring with his obvious discomfort. “Or I could get you a taxi to take you home?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Theron assured him, dabbing again at the cut. The bleeding had already stopped; he’d be surprised if there was even any swelling. He gestured down the hallway, towards what he hoped were the refreshers. “I’m just gonna … uh … clean myself up and maybe … Y’know, maybe go for a little walk? Clear my head?”

The guard nodded emphatically, immensely relieved to be freed from battered boyfriend duty. “Sure, sure, you do that. ‘Freshers are that way, balcony’s the other direction. Take as much time as you need, and if your boyfriend comes after you again, well, I’ll be out on the dance floor. You come and find me, I’ll make sure he leaves you alone. Okay?”

Theron swallowed heavily. The very last thing he’d been expecting at a party filled with Zakuulan officials and nobility was to come across a decent human being, much less to find one within the security team assigned to protecting the gathering. He felt a little guilty at taking advantage of the man’s graciousness, but he quashed his reservations and plastered on what he knew to be a wavering, fake smile.

“Thanks,” Theron said, ducking his head again to avoid meeting the guard’s eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” the guard replied gruffly, giving Theron’s arm an awkward pat. “My sister’s old man turns into a right bastard when he drinks. She deserves better, kid, and so do you.”

The guard turned and made his way back to the party. Theron waited a few heartbeats before heading towards the ‘freshers, then, once he was certain the coast was clear, he continued on down the wing. He was hopeful that his dramatic exit would provide him with the cover he’d need to be walking around unescorted through the building – just an upset man out for a stroll to clear his head, definitely not a spy poking around where he wasn’t wanted, no sir, not him. Of course, the moment he used his stolen code cylinders to access the secured administrative wing his cover wouldn’t hold up, but that was a worry for later.

“ _Nexu Three, you’re outside my camera range._ ” Miranza’s voice in his ear made Theron startle. He’d almost forgotten about the comms. “ _Come in.”_

 _“We read you 5-by-5, Nexu Two. We have been escorted off the premises,_ ” Vector said quietly through the comms. Theron could hear noises in the background that suggested the Joiner was outside: late night traffic, the signal from a crosswalk, occasional snippets of conversation. “ _Apologies to you, Nexu One, for the impromptu fisticuffs._ ”

“I’m good,” Theron replied. He made his way down the corridor, his dress shoes making soft squeaking noises with every step. He would have to remember to remove them if he needed to move silently. He didn’t see any guards or holorecorders but that didn’t mean he wasn’t being observed, so he made sure to behave as though he was strolling idly, with no particular goal or destination in mind. Fighting down the urge to smile he added, “Make it up to me later?”

He could hear the smile in Vector’s voice: “ _You have a promise, love.”_

 _“Nexu One, the access point is clear._ ” Miranza again; Theron could hear the warmth and humour in her voice even as she moved their conversation in a more professional direction. Now that he was closing in on his target he would have to put the inappropriate comm flirting on hold. “ _Two, are you able to get back inside if One needs you?_ ”

“I’ll be fine,” Theron said, but Vector answered anyway: “ _Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem._ ”

“I thought you got thrown out?”

“ _Quite._ ” Vector sounded droll. “ _But our charm will unlock the doors if needs be._ ”

The sound of Miranza’s laughter filled Theron’s ear and he had to bite down on his smile. Stars, it felt good to hear her laugh again. The last month or so since Belsavis had been far too tense, between Miranza’s struggle to recover and Theron’s near-crippling guilt over the fact that it had been _his_ fault, more or less, that she had been hurt in the first place. If it hadn’t been for his father’s insane desire to get Theron away from his Imperial lovers –

The sight of the door to the administrative wing cut off any further self-admonishment on Theron’s part, as did the two security guards standing on either side. They were dressed in the same livery as the guard who’d helped him out of the party; he knew, from the plans Miranza’s contact had provided, that they all worked for the same company. Adopting a lazy, rolling stride Theron approached them.

“Hey, you!” one of the guards called, before Theron got more than a few feet from the hallway entrance. The two men had both straightened up at the sight of him, hands resting on the holsters of their pistols. “You can’t be down here. This area’s restricted.”

Theron let himself relax into a loose-limbed gait, sizing both men up as he continued towards them. He gave them a reassuring grin. “It’s fine, man. Just taking a break from the party.”

“ _Cameras are down, One. You’re clear to act._ ”

Theron’s smile broadened and he moved with lightning speed, closing the distance between himself and the two guards. He was unarmed and unarmoured, up against two opponents equipped with both, and he knew before the fight started that it wouldn't make a difference how better-geared they were.

A swift kick to the knee took the left-hand guard down; Theron followed it up with an elbow jab to the temple that took the man out of the fight entirely. The second guard was a bit faster on his feet but didn’t seem to know whether he should go for his pistol or use his fists. Theron used that brief moment of hesitation against him, grabbing the man by the front of his jacket and slamming his face-first into the wall. He used the guard’s keycard to unlock the door, then carefully dragged the two unconscious men into the hallway beyond and closed the door again behind him.

“ _Security feed is now on loop, One. You’ve got twenty minutes to door knock, starting … Now._ ”

The administrative wing was empty and quiet, with only the emergency lighting for illumination. Between his memorization of the floor plans and a helpful boost from his implants Theron wasn’t particularly stymied by the lack of light, and he made his way past the guard station towards the data centre where Miranza’s contacts said the treasury plans were located. He kicked off his squeaky dress shoes, tucking them under the desk where the security guards stored their stuff, and headed down the hall.

“So,” he began conversationally, pitching his voice low even though there was no one around to overhear him, “Anyone given any thought to what we’re gonna do for dinner after this? ‘Cause I was thinking of checking out that roast gorak place by the market.”

He reached the door at the end of the hallway and slipped the code cylinder out of his inner jacket pocket. Inserting the cylinder in the door lock, Theron held his breath for the two seconds it took for the door to flash green, then removed the cylinder and cautiously opened the door. No alarms or flashing lights; Miranza was clearly on top of things at the safe house. Not that he’d doubted her capabilities, of course.

“ _Were you not eating appetizers all evening?” “I’m not hungry._ ” Vector and Miranza spoke over each other, their voices a discordant hum in his ear. “ _You’ve not eaten anything all day, beloved. You should try to eat something. You’ve lost weight._ ”

“You have,” Theron added, backing Vector up. Not that he normally kept an eye on his partners’ waistlines, but in the weeks since Belsavis Miranza had definitely shed more than a few pounds and now that Vector saw fit to bring it up it was something that was beginning to concern Theron. Miranza had never been a particularly large woman to begin with, and she couldn’t afford to lose much more weight. He knew that between the Killik infection and her near-death on Belsavis she hadn’t been feeling up to eating all that much, but he would have expected her appetite to improve as she recovered, and instead it seemed to stay woefully nonexistent.

“ _Can we fight about this later?_ ” Miranza asked somewhat testily. “ _Focus on the job._ ”

The three of them fell silent, and Theron approached the data centre on stocking-clad feet, casting an eye around for holorecorders. He saw cameras mounted above the doors; he also saw that they were temporarily shut off, and knew the security feed would be operating on the same loop Miranza had mentioned before. Whoever was in charge of monitoring this section would only see what Miranza wanted them to see.

The data centre was warm in spite of the heightened air conditioning, the computers putting out a considerable amount of heat. Theron slipped out of his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a chair before rolling up his sleeves to get to work. He and Miranza had already identified the specific computer he needed to access, and it was easy enough for him to summon up his mental image of the centre’s floorplan in order to locate the one he wanted. Dataspikes in hand, he keyed in the command codes and set his implants to helping him slice the system, on the alert for more traps like the one he’d fallen victim to the last time they’d been on Zakuul.

This time around the slicing was a breeze, and Theron added ‘organizational skills’ to the list of Zakuulan things he approved of, right up there with the food and drink. The archival system was one he was familiar with, and that made it a dozen times easier for him to slice in and begin copying the intel they needed onto the dataspikes. He knew exactly where to look. As he worked he kept a mental countdown going, aware that he had less than twenty minutes to get the job done and get out before the next security sweep. He knew Miranza would be keeping time as well and that she wouldn’t let him get caught flat-footed, but having an approximate idea of the time himself made him work faster.

About halfway through his last spike the lights flickered, emergency lighting going off for one brief second before switching back on at half-brightness. He looked up, rubbing sweat out of his eyes, and glanced around warily.

“That wasn’t me,” he said defensively as red lights began flashing on the console. “Was that me?”

Then, somewhere in the distance, Theron heard an explosion. It was close enough that he felt the ground quake under his feet, and alarms began going off.

“That _definitely_ wasn’t me!” he announced, forcing himself to focus on his slicing. “What’s going on up there?”

“ _Shit._ ” Miranza’s voice sounded harried. “ _How close are you to being done, Nexu One?_ ”

Theron glanced at the readout, calculating the speed of the download. It appeared to be slowing down now, and he couldn’t tell if that was because the explosion had done something to the building’s power source, or if security was clamping down on everything. “Two minutes, give or take? What’s happening?”

Another explosion, closer this time. Theron thought he could hear screaming, but he wrote it off as his mind playing tricks on him – he was nowhere near the party, and aside from the security guards he’d dealt with, there shouldn’t be anyone in this wing of the building. Once again the data feed slowed down, the numbers all but dragging across the screen. The sudden dimming of the lights was definitely _not_ his imagination, nor was the fact that the data centre was starting to warm up. He realized, somewhat belatedly, that the fans that were supposed to be circulating cooler air into the centre had shut down and he couldn’t hear the faint hum of the air conditioning. He had a brief flashback to the _Ascendant Spear_ and wondered how practical it would be for him to strip down to his underwear again. It had worked the last time, hadn’t it? Aside from fighting Sith lords and the like, of course.

“ _It’s not you, One,_ ” Miranza reassured him. She sounded distracted, and Theron could hear her fingers dancing across the keyboard. “ _It looks like we’re not the only ones who thought tonight would be a good night to crash the party. I can’t –_ ” She cut out for a second, Theron’s comm making a high-pitched whine that made him wish he could rip it from his ear. “ _I’m calling it. Get out of there, One._ ”

“Negative, Two,” Theron replied, shaking his head even though he suspected she couldn’t see him. “I’m almost done.”

There was another explosion, and this time it was definitely much closer. The data centre was heating up, so much so that Theron was starting to imagine the smell of smoke, but he forced himself to focus on the download. He was so close. The schematics were almost all there, and with them, the hope that they would be able to find and rescue the Outlander. He just had to push it a little farther –

Overclocking his implants, Theron keyed in a new sequence and focused on the console. With his cybernetics working overtime the download sped up a little, enough that he was able to push his previous estimate down by a few seconds. He coughed, glancing around warily as he realized he wasn’t imagining the smell of smoke – something _was_ on fire, and that something was relatively close by.

A flash of light behind him caught his attention and Theron turned in time to see one of the other consoles burst into flames. It was far enough away that he didn’t feel immediately threatened, but he knew he was running out of time and that sticking around much longer wasn’t going to be an option. The smoke was getting thicker, making him cough; it had a harsh, acrid smell to it that reminded him of melting plastics and singed copper. He covered his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow, using his other hand to continue typing. Sweat dripped down his face and into his eyes, making them sting, and he was uncomfortably aware of the way his shirt was plastered to his back. Between the smoke and the sweat he was pretty sure his new tuxedo was about to go the way of the old one. Fancy clothes were really starting to eat into his operational budget.

The lights flickered again before finally going out entirely, plunging the data centre into darkness. Theron’s console died, the scrawl disappearing, and the dataspike ejected on its own. The ground shook under his feet and he had to catch himself against the console, nearly ending up on his ass on the floor in spite of his best efforts. Jamming the used dataspikes into his pocket Theron went to retrieve his jacket, only for a new burst of fire to cut him off before he’d made it more than a few steps.

 _Okay, forget the jacket,_ he thought, turning towards the door – or where he thought the door was, because the smoke was getting thick and it was very difficult to see. Between the darkness and the smoke Theron was completely disoriented, and when he fetched up against a bank of consoles he realized he had staggered to the opposite side of the data centre furthest from the exit.

“Do you have eyes on me, Two?” he asked, pausing between every other word to cough on the smoke. “’Cause I’m a little turned around here and I’m having a hard time finding the exit.”

Silence from the comms. Either communications were down or Theron’s overclocked implants had shorted out. He cursed under his breath before dropping to his hands and knees in an effort to get under the smoke and the rising heat. It was slower going this way but the air was marginally cooler and easier to breathe. _Marginally._

He crawled forward, sticking close to the wall as that was his only way to orient himself within the data centre. Light thrown up by the fire provided some illumination, but the smoke made it very difficult to see and his eyes were stinging and watering.

The exit was … Theron turned, frowning. That way? No. He coughed and pushed forward, keeping the wall at his right. He couldn’t help but remember his slicer friend Joxer, who had been murdered for investigating something on Theron’s behalf: Theron remembered the man’s ruined apartment and the way the fire had burned a bizarre path through his belongings. Burning to death was definitely pretty high on Theron’s list of Bad Ways to Die™ and between his growing disorientation and the fiery ache in his chest he was starting to feel panic pressing down on him.

He had to get out of there.

Something exploded behind him, the shockwave strong enough to send Theron crashing into the wall. He lay crumpled on his side, momentarily too stunned to move, and the sound of the crackling flames was muted, drowned out by the ringing in his ears. He shook his head, pushing himself back up to his hands and knees, and continued towards where he hoped and prayed the door was.

His fingers fetched up against the door frame, nearly making him cry with relief. He pushed up on his knees, hand closing around the door handle. There was some confused scrabbling when he remembered that the door opened inwards; he had to shuffle around to the side before he could pull it open, and the smoke rushed through the opening and the room suddenly got about twenty degrees hotter. He didn’t look back, fully convinced the flames were only seconds away from reaching him, and when he finally squeezed through the door he fell flat on his face in the hallway outside.

The air here was considerably cooler but still filled with smoke. Theron tried to breathe it in – his lungs felt like they, too, were on fire – only to end up coughing again. The hallway was so dark he could barely see and he was having a very hard time recalling the layout he had memorized. It was just a straight line to the exit … wasn’t it?

He had to get the dataspikes back to Vector and Miranza. He had to get out of there.

Theron pushed forward, still on his hands and knees although his arms were shaking from the effort of keeping him upright. He managed to crawl forward a few paces before the ground shook again and his arms gave out. He tried to push himself up again but a sudden bout of coughing left him incapable of doing anything other than feeling like his lungs were trying to forcibly exit his body.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and Theron was rolled onto his back. He stared blearily up at the partially-masked face of Vector. The Joiner quickly unfastened his mask and held it up to Theron’s face, urging him to breathe. The first few breaths of stale – but completely smoke-free – air reached his lungs and Theron gulped it in, only to break into another fit of violent coughing.

“We’ve got him, Two,” Vector said, hauling Theron to his feet. Theron staggered and would have fallen were it not for Vector’s hand curled around his arm, keeping him upright. The Joiner’s next comment was directed at Theron: “Stay with us, we’ll get you out of here.”

“How …” Theron coughed, letting himself be dragged along the hallway. He still couldn’t see and had no idea how Vector knew which way to go. “How did you get back in here?”

“We told you.” Vector flashed him a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Charm.”

Theron wanted to ask more questions but he didn’t have the breath to spare and all his energy was focused on putting one foot in front of the other. When it became obvious that he was having a hard time moving under his own power Vector wrapped an arm around his waist, taking the bulk of Theron’s weight against his lean frame. Theron lost all track of where they were, clinging to consciousness through sheer stubbornness alone as Vector half-dragged, half-carried him out of the building. When they finally stumbled through an exit – passing through crowds of expensively-dressed men and women who, like them, were trying to escape the burning building – Vector drew him down a side hallway, away from the people.

The air was noticeably cooler and cleaner, but the smell of smoke clung to Theron. He blinked up at Vector again, trying very hard to remember what it was they were supposed to have been doing.

“I have the data!” he said brightly, before erupting into another fit of coughing.

“That is lovely, darling,” Vector said tersely, jerking his head from side to side as he searched the area. He spoke into his comm: “Immediate evac at south entrance, Nexu Two.” He was silent for a few seconds before nodding and saying, “Copy that.”

Theron had no idea what was going on, but was happy to leave Vector in charge of things while he focused on other important details – like sucking oxygen into his lungs, getting his ears to stop ringing, and trying to keep himself upright. The first two seemed to be relatively easy but he was having some definite trouble with the third: his knees were refusing to cooperate and even with Vector’s arm around his middle he was finding it very difficult to remain standing. Also, why wasn’t he wearing any shoes? He couldn’t remember taking them off, but it seemed silly to think he would have gone to a party without shoes.

The next thing Theron knew, Vector was propelling him forward, through a set of doors and out into the cold Zakuulan night. He had just enough time to appreciate the crisp, clean air when a taxi suddenly raced up beside them and he saw Miranza lean over to throw open the door.

“Get in!” she called. Theron wanted to obey – he really, truly did – but his limbs weren’t cooperating. Vector let out a small huff before lifting him and tossing him into the back seat of the cab, climbing into the front passenger seat himself.

“You stole a taxi-cab?” Vector commented, as Miranza took off from the curb so quickly Theron found himself sprawling across the back seat.

“Yes I did,” Miranza replied in a tone of forced cheerfulness. Theron saw her glancing back at him through the rearview mirror before turning to look at him over her shoulder. The taxi swerved, not slowing down in the slightest, and Theron heard some angry honking behind them. Miranza made an obscene gesture at one of the drivers she nearly hit before focusing her attention back on the road.

“Here, hold this,” she said, speaking to Vector and indicating the steering wheel. There was some awkward maneuvering as Miranza and Vector switched places; Vector took over driving while Miranza clambered into the back seat with Theron. At no point did the speeder slow down. At no point did either of them behave as though changing drivers mid-flight was the least bit unusual or risky.

Theron’s eyes had begun to drift shut; he opened them when he felt the weight of the medkit landing on the seat beside him. Miranza flipped through it and handed him a mask attached to a small canister; she had to help him put it on because his fingers weren’t cooperating. Once the mask was in place she hit a switch and Theron began breathing in a higher concentration of oxygen while she made some adjustments to the feed. He grumbled good-naturedly when she began shining a pen-light in his eyes and he found himself distracted by the flecks of silver he noticed in her dark blue eyes and the way her hair whipped about her face as they drove. He was dimly aware that he was feeling more than a bit of euphoria from the combination of oxygen and adrenaline, but he was inclined to enjoy it.

“Headache?” she asked, tucking the light back into the medkit. He nodded, then nodded again when she asked if he was feeling nauseated. She sorted through their collection of stims before jabbing one into his thigh, and almost immediately some of the fogginess receded from his brain.

He pulled the mask away from his mouth and nose long enough to ask, “What happened?” His voice came out in a hoarse croak.

“Idiot friends of Kaliyo’s,” Miranza muttered, making no effort to hide her annoyance. She produced a small tube of kolto gel and began smearing it on Theron’s bare arms, and the stinging he hadn’t even noticed until that moment began to dissipate. He didn’t remember getting burned, but the redness on his arms and the now-fading pain was all the evidence he needed. At least the burns were minor, barely more than first-degree.

“Apparently Kaliyo gave some of our intel to her followers,” she continued, still scowling. She opened a small bottle of water and held it to Theron’s lips, helping him drink. “They decided tonight would be a fine night to demonstrate their displeasure with the current regime. I’m not sure if she encouraged them, thinking it would provide a distraction to cover for us, or if she didn’t think they really had it in them to bomb the military history museum during a swanky party.”

“Huh,” Theron croaked, “Nice.”

Miranza rolled her eyes and muttered a very bad word in Rattataki that he hadn’t realized she knew. Then, faster than Theron could follow – which, admittedly at the moment, could have been at a snail’s pace – she punched him in the shoulder, hard.

“ _Ow,_ hey!” he protested, pulling the mask away from his face. What was _with_ them and punching him tonight? He motioned at himself. “Injured man, here, remember?” He caught a glimpse of Vector’s raised eyebrow in the rearview mirror, although the Joiner made no comment.

“What the kriff were you thinking, Theron?” she hissed back at him. “I _called_ it. You were supposed to get out of there.”

Theron sobered, rubbing his sore shoulder. “I wasn’t finished downloading the schematics. We need that intel.”

“We need _you_ more,” Miranza retorted. Vector made a sound of agreement from the front seat.

“I thought I had more time,” Theron admitted. “Then one of the consoles blew up and it got too smoky for me to see.”

Miranza bit her lip, then gently reached up and drew the mask away. Her fingers came away sooty. Her expression softened – although Theron could still see the fear and worry in her eyes – and she leaned forward, brushing her lips over his. She tasted like vanilla and spices, and he wondered if he tasted like smoke and ash.

“You scared the hell out of me,” she said softly, running her thumb over his cheek.

“Us,” Vector corrected. “You scared the hell out of _us._ ”

“I’m sorry,” Theron started, but Miranza put her hand over his mouth, silencing him. When she drew her hand away he decided it was time to change the subject – he wasn’t sure he could handle the way she looked at him, with a mixture of love and fear, as if at any moment he would be snatched away from her. She’d been looking at him that way a lot lately, he realized. As if she wasn’t sure he was real, as if she wasn’t expecting him to stick around. Swallowing hard and trying to ignore the dryness in his throat, he said, “I got the intel, at least. It wasn’t a complete wash.”

“That’s good,” Miranza said, smiling weakly. “I’d rather not try this again.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He let out a weak laugh that turned into a cough, and Miranza held the mask up to his face again. He breathed the oxygen in as she settled in beside him, her hand resting lightly but possessively on his thigh. “Turns out I might actually be afraid of fire.”

Miranza snorted and lay her head on his shoulder. He thought he could feel her pulse beating where her hand lay pressed against his thigh, and to him it seemed too fast, almost fluttering. Or maybe that was his own heartbeat he could feel; Force knew, he’d had enough excitement for one day. His stomach, somehow completely independent of his nausea, his headache, and the fact that he felt like he’d just spent the better part of the evening on a rotisserie, rumbled loudly.

“Hey,” he said, after a moment’s consideration, “Did we ever reach an agreement on that roast gorak idea? Because I’m _starving_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" is by Fall Out Boy. I'm always choreographing action scenes to this song; it's got such a good beat.


	16. Somethin' To Hold On To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous prompter on Tumblr sent me an ask requesting Theron/Miranza smut, so that's pretty much all this is, just shameless smut, with a bit of blink-and-you'll-miss-it plot. Hope you like it, Nonny!
> 
> NSFW, obviously. ;)

**_Star Cluster Casino, Nar Shaddaa, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

It felt odd to be sitting in a club while off the clock.

Not that Theron was any stranger to cantinas, nightclubs or casinos; not that he’d never gone out for a night of drinking that wasn’t in some way connected to work. It had been a while, though – not since he’d left Coruscant to join up with Lana’s harebrained resistance movement and found himself back together with Vector and Miranza. It wasn’t that either of them disapproved of him drinking or going out to cantinas, but more that it wasn’t something that particularly interested them (for both Miranza and Vector, a night out at a cantina equalled work, not pleasure) and he’d far rather spend his limited free time in their company.

So that made it … what, two, three years since the last time he’d hung out in a club without it being a work-related thing?

Granted, _one_ of them was working: Vector had arranged to meet up with an old Diplomatic Services colleague in the hopes of gathering some intelligence on Zakuul, and the Imperial-aligned casino on Nar Shaddaa had been their choice of gathering spot. Apparently the colleague – an older gentleman whose interest in Vector seemed a bit more than merely professional, at least to Theron’s eye – was something of a gambler. Once again Theron half-suspected it was simply an excuse on Miranza’s part to get him and Vector dressed up.

Vector was working, but Theron and Miranza were not, although they’d accompanied the Joiner to the casino. For once they weren’t there playing bodyguard; Vector’s contact really _was_ just a former colleague, someone with a desire to see Emperor Arcann taken down who was using the limited resources available to him to try and assist Lana’s alliance. There was nothing insidious about the man, there was nothing nefarious going on at the casino, and it was just … weird. The only tension Theron felt came from the fact that he was sitting in a casino filled with Imperials – and none of them paid him more than a cursory glance. He was free to enjoy a night out with the woman he loved, and when Vector finished up with his contact he’d be joining them, and frankly Theron had so many ideas about where the night could lead them that he’d been almost half-hard all evening.

Miranza was not helping with that. Theron could tell she was bored, even if she was giving every impression of being completely wrapped up in her people-watching. She sat beside him in the booth, far closer than the space required (not that Theron minded), the fingers of one hand tracing seemingly idle patterns on his thigh while her other hand toyed with the colourful umbrella from her drink. He’d already forgotten what she’d ordered – something fruity and bright pink – and she’d been more interested in the slices of muja fruit that accompanied her drink than with the alcoholic beverage itself.

Stars, she looked gorgeous, and it wasn’t even a case of Theron being biased (which he was, unequivocally and unrepentantly): Miranza Gerrick was stunning in a way that could still take his breath away. She’d worn a slinky dress in some sort of shimmery emerald-green fabric that caught the light when she moved and made her blue eyes seem closer to a deep shade of turquoise. The dress was low-cut but not (in Theron’s inexpert opinion) indecently so, baring just enough cleavage to give him ideas, and she wore a long silver necklace that looped around her neck several times and dipped in between her breasts, making his eyes want to follow. Her skirt had ridden up around her thighs – he didn’t think it was _that_ short, but somehow she’d moved around in such a way as to cause it to bunch up, and he was keenly aware of the bare expanse of thigh pressed against his clothed leg. She’d done something complicated with her blonde curls, sweeping them up high on her head so that they tumbled in a frothy spill about her shoulders; it looked effortless but Theron knew it likely had not been. She was beautiful and polished and it still boggled Theron’s mind that she was _his_.

He had the same mystification when it came to Vector. The Joiner was looking every bit as stunning as his wife, decked out in a dark suit with emerald notes that matched Miranza’s dress, his black hair slicked back and his eyes left uncovered for once, glittering in the neon lights of the casino. Judging from the loose-limbed, casual ease with which Vector was sitting – not to mention the tumbler of what Theron suspected was probably bourbon in his right hand – he was lightly buzzed but nowhere near drunk, and the business portion of his meeting with his Diplomatic Services contact was over and now they were on to simply shooting the breeze. Theron had gotten the impression that Vector and his colleague went way back, that the older man had perhaps served as something of a mentor for Vector, and this meet-up was as much an excuse to renew their friendship as it was a way for the other man to pass on useful intelligence on Zakuul. Vector appeared to be having an excellent time, and Theron didn’t think their meeting would be ending any time soon.

Which was … frustrating, because Theron could think of _other_ ways he’d rather be passing the time. He was glad Vector was enjoying himself, however; frankly, the three of them had had few opportunities for that lately.

The hand on his thigh seemed to be inching closer and closer towards Theron’s crotch, and he tore his gaze away from Vector to give Miranza a surreptitious glance under the guise of taking a sip of his whiskey. (Some Corellian brand he wasn’t familiar with: high end, but no Whyren’s Reserve.) On the surface of it Miranza didn’t appear to be paying him any attention, and her gentle caress was distracted, almost incidental. But Theron knew Miranza better than that, and he could see the faint flush on her cheeks and the way her pupils had grown wide. The casino was dark, but it wasn’t _that_ dark.

Setting his tumbler on the table, Theron leaned in and kissed the smooth line of Miranza’s neck, feeling more than hearing her slight intake of breath. He brushed her curls away, exposing more skin, and let his lips wander up to that spot behind her ear that made her – ah, _there_ it was, that little sound that wasn’t quite a gasp and wasn’t quite a moan. Tugging her earlobe between his teeth he felt her hand brush over his crotch, and this time around it wasn’t idle diversion, it was deliberate and he could feel her palming him through the fabric of his pants.

Miranza turned her head, her other hand coming up to sweep under his jaw and pull him in for a kiss. He groaned into her mouth when he felt her cup him, her fingers warm and oh so gentle as she stroked him through his pants. Their kiss was long and open-mouthed and sloppy, and he could taste the sweet, fruity drink she'd been enjoying. When Theron finally pulled away Miranza nipped his lower lip, her eyes gone heavy-lidded and her mouth swollen.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and Theron felt a smug thrill at the knowledge that the breathless quality of her voice was _entirely_ due to her response to him.

He didn’t have to be told twice. Miranza caught Vector’s eye as she climbed out of the booth, signing something at him – Rekka, born deaf and able to hear only through the use of her cybernetic implants, had been teaching them all sign language, partly for fun and partly in the event her implants were ever taken offline in the field. Vector gave a nod in return, a faint smile playing about his lips as he returned his attention to his companion. Then Miranza’s hand was in Theron’s and he would have been hard-pressed to say whether he was the one leading her or if it was the other way around.

The elevator doors had barely closed behind them before Miranza had Theron up against the mirrored back wall, pressing herself up against him, her lips hot where they traced over the hollow of his throat. Theron let her move him any which way she wanted him, his hands on her hips, fingers inching the shimmering green cloth of her dress up to expose more smooth, milky flesh. She pressed in close, her body tight against his, and he slotted a knee between her legs, sucking in a breath when she ground herself against him.

“ _Stars,_ Miri,” he grunted as her hands found their way inside his tux jacket and under his buttoned-up shirt.

Miranza pulled away, blinking up at him. “ _Miri_?”

He flushed and ran a hand over his dark spiky hair, feeling the tips of his ears heating up. “It … uh … It just slipped out.” In truth he’d been thinking of her by that nickname for a while now. Vector called her ‘beloved’ and Theron had tried on ‘sweetheart,’ but it didn’t work for him, not really. He wasn’t an endearments kind of guy. He wasn’t a _nicknames_ kind of guy and it was painfully embarrassing for him to have been caught using one.

“Miri,” Miranza repeated again. The corners of her mouth twitched until she was giving him a fond smirk. “I kinda like it.”

“Shut up and kiss me, Miri.”

Still smirking, Miranza went up on tiptoes and placed a long, lingering kiss on his lips. Sufficiently distracted from his embarrassment, Theron wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, sliding her skirt up until his fingers skimmed over bare skin. She ground against his knee again, making soft, needy noises into his mouth that sent delicious fire direct to his groin. Theron wondered how long the elevator would take to get them up to their suite, and whether or not he’d have enough time to just fuck her up against the wall then and there.

Miranza seemed to be on a similar wave-length, for she pulled away again and, hands trailing down over Theron’s fancy clothes, dropped to her knees in front of him.

“What … What’re you doing?” Theron asked, even as she began working at the fastenings of his pants. She looked up at him, grinning wickedly, and the next thing Theron knew his pants were around his knees and Miranza’s lips were wrapped around his cock. Her lipstick was dark crimson and when she drew back again he could see it smeared over his skin in a perfect ring.

“What am I doing, Theron?” Miranza murmured, giving his cock a long, wet lick. “I’m going down on you in an elevator, that’s what I’m doing. Did you want me to stop?”

“ _Fuck_ , no.” His voice came out a little shaky, a little breathless, but frankly Theron was amazed he could still talk, even if two words – one of them vulgar – scarcely counted as speech. He had a fleeting mental image of the elevator stopping and the doors opening onto a cluster of would-be passengers, and for a moment he considered asking Miranza to stop until they at least got back to their suite. But it was a very, _very_ brief moment, and – in what passed for brilliance, given the way his brain was stuttering to a halt – he caught her by the shoulders and spun her around so that she was the one wedged in the corner of the elevator and he was the one with his back to the door. He placed his palms on the mirrored glass, his body blocking any sight of Miranza from the door. Anyone walking in would get an eyeful of his bare-ass-naked butt-cheeks, but to his sex-addled mind that was better than them stumbling in on Miranza in this position. He didn’t know if it was chivalry or possessiveness that made him want to shelter Miranza from being seen like this, and he really didn’t care.

Miranza went back to work, her lips wrapping around his cock, her hands coming up to rest on Theron’s hipbones, holding him in position. He let one hand drop from the wall to her head, fingers twisting in her curls, the blonde gone brassy in the elevator lighting. She made a small hum of approval that sent jolts racing up and down his spine and he groaned, doing his best to keep himself from thrusting into her mouth. Her head bobbed and she took him in as far as she could, gagging just a little around him before drawing back to lick and kiss her way up and down his length.

He wasn’t going to last long, not at this rate, not after how she’d been working him up all damned evening. His fingers tightened in her hair, his other hand slipping a little on the glass, leaving sweaty palmprints streaking across the pristine surface. He grunted, hips bucking just a little, and she made another approving sound that vibrated against his cock and made him groan deep in his throat. He gave another experimental thrust, using his hand in her hair to direct her movements, and the look she gave him was so filled with lust and admiration that it was all Theron could do to keep himself from just jack-hammering into her. She moved a little faster, lips forming a perfect circle around his cock, her tongue working his length, and her fingers dug into his hips, practically urging him to thrust harder and faster. When he did – cautiously; he didn’t want to hurt her – she hummed again, and he let his other hand drop to her head until he was cradling her, his fingers tangled in her curls as he guided her mouth around him.

“Miranza … _Miri_ …” He tried to pull away a little, tried to signal that he was getting close, and then she raked her nails over his buttocks and Theron’s world exploded into white light and sheer pleasure. She continued licking and sucking until he was gasping, his knees going weak, and he finally had to release her head so that he could rest both hands on the walls to keep himself from dropping to the floor.

Miranza cleaned him off, her tongue making him gasp and groan in his overly-sensitized state, and then she stood up and dabbed lightly at her lips, looking incredibly pleased with herself. He caught her by the wrist and pulled her in close, kissing her hard and hungrily, tasting himself on her.

“I’m going to get you for that,” he growled in her ear, squeezing her wrist and planting a long, lingering kiss on her neck.

Miranza smirked at him again and hit the button for their floor. The elevator hadn’t even moved; it was amazing no one else had summoned it.

“Oh, I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, before helping him back into his pants.

By the time they finally reached their floor they were stumbling over each other, hands and mouths roaming everywhere, bodies clinging like vines. Theron’s tie was hanging loose around his neck and Miranza had worked the first three buttons of his shirt free, leaving his chest bare and liberally smeared with vivid red lipstick stains. Her dress was half-unzippered down the back and her hair was a tousled mess, spilling down her shoulders and back in a tangle of gold and brass curls.

Theron barely managed to key in their door-code before they were falling into their suite, tumbling through the open door. He slammed the door shut behind him and shoved Miranza up against it, face-first, one hand going between her legs to find her wet and hot, the other sweeping the hair away from the back of her neck so he could plant kisses over her bared neck and shoulders and down the slender slope of her spine. She made little keening noises that he knew had to be audible from the hallway, and when he bit down on the curve of her shoulder she cried out and he felt her come around his fingers.

He gave her no respite, pulling her away from the door and hauling her over to the bed, where he pushed her down on the edge of the mattress and dropped to the floor between her spread legs. Miranza leaned back on her elbows, lifting her head enough so she could watch him work. He rucked her skirt up around her thighs, heedless of the expensive fabric, and pulled her thighs further apart to give himself more room. Her black panties were soaked; she lifted her hips slightly so he could peel them down, and when he traced kisses up and down her legs she made soft whimpering noises that had him more than half-hard again. Theron buried his face between Miranza’s legs, savouring the heady, familiar scent of her, the taste of liquid honey on his tongue and her musical cries in his ears.

This time Theron left her hanging, pulling his mouth away just before she reached her crescendo. They attacked each other then, Miranza ripping his shirt open – buttons flying everywhere – as he tore her dress away, neither of them giving the slightest care towards their fancy clothing or their surroundings in their haste to bare themselves.

Theron caught her wrists, pinning them to the bed over her head. His eyes were on her face, watching her expression, waiting to be sure this worked for her and he wasn’t triggering any unpleasant memories. They had too many of those between them. Miranza’s eyes widened slightly, but when she bucked up under him it was in invitation, not in an attempt to push him off, and he took that for her approval. He adjusted his grip so that he was keeping her wrists pinned with one hand, his other hand pressing between her legs, feeling her ready for him. When he finally slid inside her it was like coming home, and she – already so close to the edge – convulsed around him, making him let out a helpless groan into the side of her throat.

He wanted … _Stars_ , Theron didn’t know _what_ he wanted. He wanted to come, wanted to feel her come apart around him and under him, wanted to hear her scream his name or just scream incoherently from the pleasure of it all. He slammed his hips against hers, making her whimper and moan, and she tried to buck up under him again but didn’t have the leverage and stars, she was perfect, she was beautiful, she was _everything_ –

“I love you,” he gasped out, and if he hadn’t been gazing deep into her eyes he wouldn’t have seen the flicker there, the faintest, briefest trace of something … _off_ … but then she had worked one hand free from his grip and yanked his head down to hers so their mouths could meet in a brutal kiss, and that was it, that was enough, he was tipping over the edge.

Theron came, spilling inside of her, and that was more than enough to send her tumbling after him, crying out his name –

Afterwards, he pulled her in close, her head nestled on his chest. He breathed in the scent of her, her vanilla and spice perfume and the fruity shampoo she favoured. She was a warm and sweaty weight against him, her breath still coming fast, and he couldn’t tell if it was his heartbeat or hers he could feel thundering through his chest.

“I love you, Miri,” he said again, and there it was again, that tiniest hint of tension before she went still and calm beside him. Her hand came up to cup his jaw, pulling his head down into another kiss.

“I love you, too,” she said softly against his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title comes from a line from Bruce Springsteen's "Human Touch."
> 
> I hemmed and hawed over Theron's nickname for Miranza. "Mira" felt clunky, even though it's a name I like (and is a name in _Star Wars_ canon, to boot). "'Ranza" just felt forced. I think "Miri" is just cute enough to be one of those names that only gets used in an intimate setting - at least for these two.


	17. Day Is Night Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A late night (early morning?) holo-conference takes place, and Miranza thinks too damned much.
> 
> (From another anonymous prompter who was having a lousy week and wanted some angsty fluff. I hope your week gets better, Nonny, and I hope this fills the prompt for you.)

_**Safe House, New Plympto, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Miranza yawned loudly, feeling her jaw crack in the process, and ran a hand through her sleep-tousled hair. Three in the morning was too damned early for a conference holo, especially when she and Theron and Vector had only gone to bed around midnight and she’d spent most of the intervening three hours fighting her way through one nightmare after the other. When the alarm sounded she’d been in the middle of a horrifying dream that saw Theron being compelled to flay pieces of skin off her bare arms while Samar and Vector looked on in amusement, and she’d made a beeline to the ‘fresher before either of the men could notice her frazzled state. Even now, almost half an hour later, she was still feeling shaky and over-sensitive.

And tired. Let’s not forget tired.

She sat perched on the edge of her chair, her elbows on the table, her head resting on one hand. Without that hand she was certain she would be facedown on the table, too exhausted to keep herself upright – but too out of sorts to fall back to sleep. Theron was beside her, sprawled with careless, boneless grace in his chair, his feet up on her chair behind her back, one arm hooked over the back of his own seat. He kept snagging the hem of her T-shirt with his toes and tugging on it, or brushing one foot against the small of her back. It was a habit he'd developed; he had feet like a Kowakian monkey-lizard, all prehensile toe, but she found it strangely adorable.

Vector came and set a pair of mugs on the table in front of them, and Miranza drank in the warm, soothing aroma of freshly-made caf. She knew without taking a sip that the caf was already doctored to her preferences, and it brought to mind a lesson she’d received from an older agent back at the Academy. That agent – Fixer Six – maintained that any time a woman knew how to fix a man’s caf, it was because she was either his mother or his lover. Six had been something of a cynic, even by Imperial Intelligence standards, but the idea had always stayed with Miranza, especially in light of her own relationships. She certainly knew how to fix both Theron’s and Vector’s caf – or tea, as the case may be – and she was indeed their lover, but the notion that either Vector’s mother or Satele Shan could prepare their caf for them was vaguely ludicrous. She doubted very much that Vector’s mother would even _recognize_ her son now and she would have been surprised if Satele had any idea where Theron even was, much less how he took his caf. Besides that, all three of them could doctor drinks for any one of their team, from Lana (who preferred hers with a neat splash of bourbon) to Barrazhat (no caf, just tea and – to quote him – ‘as black as his cold, dead heart’) to Rekka (two cream, three sugar). And while close quarters and emergency situations had certainly landed them all in bed together, they weren’t _sleeping together_ in the euphemistic sense. Still, it amused Miranza to think about it, and she wondered if Fixer Six would have been forced to revise his opinion had he known any of them.

She wondered if Six was even still alive. After the dissolution of Imperial Intelligence, the fighting on Corellia and then all the other craziness that had befallen the galaxy, it wouldn’t have surprised her to learn he had been among the many, many casualties. The thought made her sad. Cynical bastard that he was, Six had been a good man and an excellent agent.

Most of her old mentors were dead. That was a sobering thought.

Frowning into her caf, Miranza swallowed heavily and drew in a few deep, slow breaths. Beside her Theron snagged the hem of her T-shirt – technically, she thought it might actually be _his_ T-shirt, a battered old Frogdogs team shirt with a hole in one armpit and a caf-stain down the front – and gave it a sharp tug. Dragged from her thoughts (which, she suspected, was probably his goal) Miranza smiled tiredly in his direction, letting her eyes drift over his beloved figure. Like her Theron was sleep-tousled and rumpled, with the lines from his pillowcase imprinted on one cheek and his dark brown hair flattened on one side and spiky on the other. He wore an old pink Hello Nexu T-shirt that was maybe a size or two too small, pulled tight across his broad shoulders and snug against the muscled slope of his back, and when he stretched – as he did now, grinning lazily at the effect it had on her – the shirt rode up and exposed strips of toned golden-brown skin. Theron’s sleep pants were old and faded, the dark fabric worn soft and faded from frequent use.

Vector came and sat down across from her, his own mug of caf cupped between both hands. He had already been awake when the alarm went off – Miranza suspected he’d been awakened from his own nightmare and had just decided to get up – and thus looked marginally more ‘with it’ than she or Theron. His black hair was freshly combed and he’d already given himself a quick shave (unlike Theron, whose stubble was coming in dark and scruffy along his jawline). He wore a deep crimson T-shirt that had also probably belonged to Theron (it was just a tiny bit too short for Vector, not that Miranza was complaining) and his sleep pants were dark, with what looked like red polka-dots but were in fact tiny red bugs – a gift from Kaliyo, of all people, which had absolutely delighted Vector to no end.

Stars, she wanted nothing better than to drag both men back to the bedroom and sleep for another hundred years or so. None of them had been sleeping well lately and various assignments from Lana had kept them busy for the past few weeks. She was tired and more than a little unsettled, and she wanted very much to forget that brief post-waking moment when she had looked at Theron’s face and seen a stranger staring back at her. Her rational mind told her the image had been nothing more than the fading remnants of her nightmare, but there was another part of her that was still haunted by Amrielle’s words.

_How can you believe a single word that comes out of his beautiful, lying mouth?_

_Fuck off, Amrielle, you evil witch,_ Miranza thought, not for the first time since receiving the Nautolan’s taunting message. _She_ knew Theron, she and Vector, not Amrielle, not Satele Shan or Jace Malcom or any of the dozens of other people in their lives who thought they’d seen to the heart of the man. He was a liar and a thief and a murderer and a spy, but stars above, so was she, so was Vector ( _because of you,_ a guilty voice whispered in the back of her mind, _he only became those things for you, he was a good man before you_ ), and Theron was _theirs._

The worst nightmares were the ones where she heard Theron tell her he loved her, and it sounded just like it had when he’d uttered those words to Samar. Amrielle’s voice – which sounded suspiciously like the guilty voice in Miranza’s mind – whispered at her: _Beautiful liar._ She didn’t know whether Amrielle meant her or Theron.

The sudden chirruping from the holocomm in the centre of the table startled her, and Miranza sloshed hot caf over the back of one hand as she jolted out of her reverie. Cursing under her breath, she licked the caf off her skin as Vector accepted the incoming call, a quizzical glance cast in her direction. Lana Beniko’s face came to life in the middle of the table, the blue holograph flickering slightly until the signal strengthened. Unlike the three of them, Lana looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, dressed for some formal function rather than pulled from sleep as they had been. It was only twenty-hundred hours on Dromund Kaas, Miranza remembered.

“You’re looking dressed to kill, Beniko,” Theron commented before swallowing a mouthful of caf. “Enjoying the Kaas City nightlife?”

_“Hardly,”_ Lana replied dryly. Her gaze flickered to something off-screen before she continued, _“I’m expected at a memorial benefit for the Imperial soldiers killed on Darth Marr’s flagship. Empress Acina”_ – and here Lana’s expression tightened, a wry smile flitting about her lips – _“was very explicit in her invitation.”_

_Empress_ Acina: Miranza was still getting used to that. She hadn’t known the Dark Council member well, but in the wake of Darth Marr’s death and the disappearance or destruction of the other members of the Council the head of the Sphere of Technology had become the last Sith standing. Miranza didn’t know what to think of that, and hoped that Lana’s presence on Dromund Kaas would help to shed some light on the situation. The Zakuulan blockade made it difficult to travel to the Imperial capital or to Coruscant, but Lana had her ways. Miranza could probably have managed it herself if she’d had any inclination to return to Dromund Kaas.

“Give her our love,” Theron said, quirking a sarcastic grin.

_“Thank you, but I much prefer my head attached to my shoulders, if it’s all the same to you,”_ Lana said somewhat acerbically. She sighed before switching gears. _“I’ve sent you a list of coordinates to check out, planets that I think might serve as suitable safe havens to set up operations. Did you receive them?”_

“Yes,” Vector answered with a nod, drawing out a datapad and keying it on. On the screen Miranza saw a set of star charts, with a number of locations highlighted in red. “Do you have any preferences on the order in which we survey these locations?”

Lana thought for a moment, tapping her stylus against her lips. _“Closer to Zakuulan space would be best, although not actually_ in _Zakuulan territory,”_ she said thoughtfully. _“We may need a quick escape once we’ve rescued the Outlander, and it would be ideal to be able to stage our attacks from relatively close at hand.”_ She paused, thinking, then gave a small shrug. _“I trust your judgment.”_

“How go recruitment efforts on your end?” Theron asked. He was stroking circles around Miranza’s lower back with the tips of his toes, not quite tickling her. Lana had mentioned some marginal success in approaching members of Zakuulan society for her resistance movement, and while she had been cagey about who she’d found they were all hopeful that they’d be able to gain some inside intel from her new contacts. This trip to Dromund Kaas was the first time she’d been off of Zakuul in months.

_“I have one new prospect lined up,”_ Lana said, still sounding thoughtful. _“I hope to have more to report back in the future, but for now we’re still feeling each other out.”_

Theron exchanged amused glances with Miranza, although neither of them said anything. Lana had mentioned another potential contact – a Zakuulan man who might have been a former member of the military – and at the time there had seemed to be something more going on between him and Lana. She wouldn’t give names, but both Miranza and Theron were under the distinct impression that the Sith lord was perhaps a little bit smitten with the former officer. There was a certain fondness in her voice whenever she spoke of him that seemed quite out of context for someone who was supposedly _just_ a contact and potential recruit. Vector, for his part, chose not to speculate, and Rekka and Barrazhat emphatically did not care so long as whatever relationship Lana did or did not have with the man provided them with useful intel.

_“Save the double entendre for another time, Theron,”_ Lana continued, arching one pale blonde eyebrow at them. _“She’s old enough to be my mother.”_

“Now, now, Lana,” Vector said in a blandly innocent tone, “Older women can be quite attractive. Theron’s mother, Grand Master Shan, for example –”

Theron spat a mouthful of caf across the table, sputtering in annoyance and mild embarrassment. His cheeks were flushed, as were the very tips of his ears, which Miranza found absolutely adorable. He was grumbling in indignation but she could see the humour in his warm hazel eyes, and it sent a gentle throb of desire through her. “Oh, you did _not_ just make a mom joke!”

Miranza hid her amusement behind her own cup, smiling down at the table. Once upon a time, not that long ago, Theron wouldn’t have been able to laugh at a joke about his mother, and perhaps had it come from anyone else – Vector had respect for Satele Shan, but was not particularly attracted to her so far as Miranza was aware – he still wouldn’t have found it funny, but it was _Vector._ The Joiner was acutely aware of Theron’s difficulties with his mother (and with relationships in general), and this light jest at Theron’s expense was the limits to which Vector would tease. Miranza suspected even _she_ couldn’t get away with making a joke like that, but coming from Vector, with his warm, gentle humour, Theron’s righteous indignation was largely for show, a _pro forma_ response to a good friend’s ‘mom joke.’

“How goes the rescue planning?” she asked, taking pity on Theron – who was still spluttering incoherently – and changing the subject.

_“Quite well, actually,”_ Lana replied, looking grateful for the diversion. _“We should be able to act on it in a handful of months, I believe, which ought to give your team time to find us a suitable safe haven.”_ She glanced down, blonde hair falling in her face, and seemed to be studying something. _“We’ve reason to believe the Outlander may be suffering from the effects of carbonite poisoning. I have a team working on procuring an antidote to counteract these effects.”_

“How did you find that out?” Theron asked. Suitably recovered from Vector's teasing, he had finished his caf and was on his way to the tiny kitchen area to clean out his mug, his sleep pants riding low on his hips. With his pink Hello Nexu T-shirt rolling up over his stomach (the grinning mascot almost lost amid the wrinkles), Miranza caught a glimpse of dark hair below his navel, and she felt that low throb of desire again. Vector’s foot under the table nudged her own and she glanced up, smiling at the amusement on his face at having caught her staring and distracted. He arched an eyebrow at her and she gave a small half-shrug. Perhaps when this holo-conference ended the three of them might find more interesting things to do in bed than sleep.

_“My new contact.”_ Lana’s gaze was fixed slightly to the left of the holocomm, and Miranza could see that she was trying to put on her earrings while still talking to them. The Sith lord seldom wore any jewelry – she found baubles as ostentatious and unnecessary as titles – but it seemed like she was going all-out for Empress Acina’s party. _“I was rather under the impression that this isn’t the first time Emperor Arcann had an enemy frozen in carbonite, and I’m led to believe carbonite poisoning is a somewhat common occurrence on Zakuul. Something to do with an improper freezing process, I believe. I’m not familiar enough with the mechanics of carbonite freezing to understand the details, however.”_

“Fair enough.” Theron returned to the table and stood beside Vector, leaning his hip against the other man’s shoulder. He stretched his arms up over his head – making his shirt ride up even further, much to Miranza’s appreciation – and yawned, scratching at the side of his face where Miranza could still see the faint imprint of his pillow. “Caedan’ll be all right, though, yeah?”

This time it was Vector that Miranza exchanged amused glances with. The two of them remembered Master Savarr from Ziost, although there’d hardly been time for proper introductions or friendly chatter, and Miranza seemed to recall that some of Theron’s conversation with the Jedi had had a distinctly flirtatious feel to it – and that Master Savarr had seemed to be reciprocating. Theron had never given any indication that things had gone any further between them after Ziost, but Miranza thought perhaps he would have liked them to. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that – not because she was jealous, but because she didn’t think the Jedi Order as a whole had been terribly kind to Theron, and she wasn’t certain it would be healthy for him to enter into a relationship with one of their members. She thought it might be good to see Theron stretch his wings a little, romantically speaking, but she didn’t want him to end up getting hurt if this Caedan Savarr took that whole ‘no attachments’ part of the Code as seriously as the rest of them did.

On the other hand … Memories of Oriana Zarasa and her beautiful, happy family on Belsavis flashed through Miranza’s mind, and she wondered – if Caedan shared Oriana’s sentiments, would that perhaps be good for Theron? Or would it make him question his mother’s decisions regarding himself, _again_? She could practically hear Theron's dark speculation on the matter: _Was it just that_ I _wasn't good enough for her to keep? Was I not worth walking away from the Order for?_ Not that Oriana had left the Jedi Order; the woman was still very much a Jedi. She just happened to be a Jedi with a husband and two small children, and no desire to give up any of that in order to follow the Order's rules about attachments.

Vector’s foot brushed against hers again, and although he didn’t speak she could read the admonition in his face. Theron was a grown man. If he decided to pursue a relationship with the Outlander – _if_ they were able to rescue him and _if_ he was even interested in being in a relationship with Theron (honestly, though, who _wouldn't_ want that?) – that was his own business. If he got hurt, she and Vector would be there to help him through it, as always. (Although a small, vindictive voice in the back of Miranza’s head cautioned that if Caedan Savarr hurt Theron, Lana might need to find herself another saviour of the galaxy. Perhaps Arcann had more Jedi stashed away in carbonite somewhere in his vault, just saving them all up for a rainy day.)

It occurred to Miranza that she and Vector had never discussed the parameters of their relationship with Theron, and that he might not even have realized that he could pursue a relationship with Master Savarr. Not that Vector or Miranza had any control over Theron, but it might not occur to him that there was room in their open relationship for more. They would need to have this chat with him and soon – but four in the morning did not strike her as a reasonable time for this discussion.

It also occurred to her, somewhat belatedly, that it seemed much easier for her to consider discussing the nature of their open relationship with a man who struggled with abandonment issues and a shocking degree of insecurity, than it was to contemplate sharing the details of the messages Amrielle had been sending her.

Miranza was secretive by nature, but it was something she had been working to overcome, and in fairness to herself she had grown to be more open and comfortable with Vector and then eventually with Theron. This time around – these insufferable, taunting messages Amrielle had been leaving in her dead drops and safe houses – she wasn’t trying to hide things because she didn’t trust her partners, but rather because both Vector and Theron had enough problems on their minds without adding hers to the mix. There was no pretending that Vector wasn’t still horribly traumatized by the destruction of Ziost or by the painful terror of believing Theron had been killed when Emperor Vitiate had consumed the planet. The Joiner still woke up almost every night suffering from bad dreams, and any time even the slightest injury befell one of them he turned into an overprotective nervous wreck. The weeks following the Killik infection – which Vector blamed himself for exposing Theron and Miranza – had been especially bad, as had her lengthy convalescence after the trap on Belsavis. It was too easy for him to imagine he’d lost them, because for weeks after Ziost he _had_ lost Theron: there’d been no way for them to communicate, no way for Theron to let them know he’d survived. For all intents and purposes Theron had been dead, and Vector had mourned him, desperately. The revelation that Theron had not been on Ziost when the planet had been destroyed had done little to relieve Vector’s fears, because with their lives it could happen again at any time.

And Theron … Theron was drinking too much. Miranza knew it, Vector knew it, and Miranza was pretty sure _Theron_ knew it as well and was simply lying to himself. ( _Beautiful liar,_ Amrielle’s sneering voice taunted again.) Miranza wasn’t entirely certain what she was supposed to _do_ with this knowledge, however, because Theron was still clearly functional and it wasn’t as though he was drinking in the middle of an operation or anything. He would say he knew his limits; he would say that all Intelligence operatives drank, to one degree or another (and that was true, Miranza could count on one hand the number of spies who didn’t have some sort of drinking problem, to some extent). He would say he was fine, that he was just taking the edge off, that it helped him to unwind and to sleep at night. And Miranza recognized all of those statements for the lies they were.

But, as with Theron’s feelings for Caedan, Theron’s relationship with alcohol was his own issue. He was a grown man. He wasn’t hurting anyone (except for perhaps himself, and even that was debatable – he was never hung over, he was never blackout drunk, he didn’t put himself into dangerous situations). He just … drank. More than Miranza would like. But she wasn’t his mother. She was worried about him, yes, but aside from reassuring him – repeatedly – that he could talk to her or Vector about anything, any time he needed to, and that they would love him no matter what … She was completely out of her depth.

A bare foot came down on her own, and she blinked across the table at Vector, suddenly aware that the holo-conference had ended. She couldn’t remember what else Lana had had to say – really, she wasn’t sure that the three of them had needed to wake up in the middle of the night for that conversation; it all could’ve been conveyed over messaging – nor did she know what conclusions their team had reached. Vector wiggled his toes against hers before pulling away again and standing up. As he did, he let out a long groan and stretched, the vertebrae in his back making several loud popping noises.

“Ouch,” Theron said, wincing in sympathy as Vector tried another stretch and then rotated his head from side to side, producing yet more pops and cracks. “Want a back rub?”

Vector hesitated slightly, shoulders tensing. He was … not exactly sensitive about his back, but certainly conscious of what it looked like – and more so, he was very, very cognizant of Miranza’s feelings on the matter. Several years earlier, under order of the Dark Council, Vector had been whipped for his repeated failure to bring Theron Shan into custody. The whipping had had less to do with Vector and more to do with serving as a warning to Miranza, who was considered the agent in charge and who therefore bore chief responsibility for their failures. (And in the Empire, failure was the same as treason. In their case, it literally _was_ treason, as they'd done everything in their power to ensure Theron escaped.) She’d been branded, a slave brand on her left hip: a reminder that she was Imperial property and that hurting Vector Hyllus was the easiest way to hurt her. They’d made them both watch, him to watch her being branded, her to watch him being whipped. It wouldn't have gotten the message across if they hadn't been made to bear witness to the other's pain.

She still had nightmares about that. She knew he did, too.

Vector’s back no longer pained him, the wounds having long healed and scarred over, but the scars themselves often left him stiff and sore, and he was more prone to putting his back out. He healed quickly, of course, thanks to his Joiner physiology, but enhanced stamina and resilience couldn’t always account for sleeping wrong or lifting something too heavy or even just moving the wrong way too quickly. (Or old age, as Theron liked to remind Vector. Vector was three years' Theron's senior, and the two liked to tease one another about the age difference.)

But Vector wasn’t sensitive about his back or his scars, only about Miranza’s response to them. Theron had seen those scars, on numerous occasions: he’d stroked his fingers over them, dropped a line of kisses down them, licked the silvery lines with his tongue. The old injuries made Theron angry, but not at Miranza and certainly not at Vector, and he was adept at making sure the two Imperials were aware of the difference. And Miranza could not conceive of a time when she would not delight in the chance to watch the two men she loved most in the galaxy easing each other’s pain and bringing one another pleasure.

“A back rub would be wonderful, love,” Vector said finally, letting Theron take him by the hand and lead him back into the bedroom.

Not wanting to intrude, Miranza spent a few minutes tidying up, washing her and Vector’s mugs and setting the table to rights. By the time she joined them in the bedroom, Vector was shirtless and lying facedown on the bed, with Theron straddling his hips, his strong hands already kneading at the knots in Vector’s back. Vector’s eyes were closed, but when he heard Miranza enter the room he opened them and gave her a drowsy smile, raising one hand to beckon languidly at her.

“Come join us, beloved,” he said, letting out a low groan when Theron massaged a particularly tense spot between his shoulder blades.

The low throb of desire that had begun before the holo-conference remained, spurring her into the bedroom and up onto the bed with her two lovers. Exhausted and more than a little out of sorts – too many anxious thoughts on too little sleep – Miranza wasn’t feeling especially amorous, but just being there with Vector and Theron, watching the two men interact, was a balm to her soul. The three of them were transient, all but homeless in the wake of their shared decision to step away from the Empire and the Republic in order to take part in Lana’s resistance movement, and yet for Miranza home would always be found in the arms of these two men she loved more than anything else in the galaxy.

She settled onto the bed, shoving some pillows between her back and the headboard to give herself support. Theron continued his massage, his strong brown hands working to ease the tension from Vector’s shoulders. In the low light of the bedroom Vector’s scars were faint, little more than silvery lines etched across his lean back, a latticework tracery of inflicted pain that still broke Miranza’s heart to see. It had been done as a message to her, to demonstrate that –

_“Stop.”_ Vector’s voice was soft and dreamy, but there was a note of firmness in it. He stretched one long arm out towards her, index finger poking gently at the spot on her forehead where her brows were drawn together in consternation. His thumb brushed lightly over the spot before tracing down over her cheek.

“Stop what?” Miranza asked, her own voice wary.

“Whatever it is you are thinking about that has your aura so troubled,” Vector replied. Above him Theron gave Miranza a look that was a mixture of stern and compassionate before dropping his gaze to focus on his work. Vector grunted, a low, deeply masculine sound, when Theron’s fingers dug into a tight knot just below his left shoulder blade. The scarring was a bit thicker there, where the whip had struck multiple times, tearing through flesh down into the muscle below. On cold, damp days that spot pained him, made him move slowly and cautiously.

“There it is again,” Vector said quietly. “Stop thinking, beloved.”

_I can’t,_ Miranza wanted to say, but instead she said, “I was thinking you’re home to me.” It wasn’t quite a lie – she _had_ been thinking that, just not at this precise moment.

Theron looked up from Vector’s back, blinking a few times as he stared at Miranza’s face. The sudden warmth and happiness that suffused his expression was like the sun coming out after days of rain and darkness. Not so long ago a statement like that from Miranza or Vector would have earned them a suspicious glance or a disbelieving snort from Theron, but now – after everything they’d been through together – he was simply pleasantly surprised. He pushed himself forward, leaning over Vector so that he could reach Miranza, and placed a long, lingering kiss on her lips.

“You’re home to me, too,” Theron said, voice barely above a whisper. Vector’s hand curled loosely around Miranza’s foot, his thumb stroking over the bones of her ankle.

Miranza leaned back against the headboard, snuggling down into the pillows, Vector’s hand warm on her foot and Theron’s kiss still tingling on her lips. Drowsy and happy and safe, she let her worries and fears and guilt slip away and allowed herself to bask in the warmth that filled her at that realization: _this_ was home. Not the safe house, not the planet, but Vector and Theron. They were her home, as she was theirs.

As she finally drifted off to sleep, the gentle whisper of Theron’s hands on Vector and their languid, soft-spoken conversation filling her mind and crowding out the taunting, negative voices in her head, Miranza’s last thought was that they were her home, and she would be damned if she let Amrielle, Emperor Arcann or the conflict between the Sith Empire and the Republic take them away from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a line from the song "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M., which was the mixture of melancholy and hopefulness that I was trying to capture in this chapter.
> 
> Theron's Hello Nexu T-shirt comes with the gracious permission of Tumblr user @damarlegacy. (Thank you very much!)


	18. Can't Feel My Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meet-up with potential new contacts goes south in a big way. Secrets are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on an anonymous prompt I received on Tumblr. This probably isn’t what Nonny intended, but the basic gist of the prompt was “Theron, drugged, cantina.” I’ve already done that once in _The Voices of Thieves and Robbers,_ so at the suggestion of a friend I took the idea and ran with it in a different direction.
> 
> Trigger warnings for non-consensual drug use, unwanted sexual contact and attempted sexual assault.

_**Gebroila, Hutta, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Theron used the scarf around his neck to mop at the sweat on his cheeks and forehead, careful not to dislodge the disreputable hat that slouched low on his brow to keep his face hidden from the holorecorders. He sat – or slumped, rather – in a booth at the back of the cantina, a spot that afforded him an excellent view of his surroundings as well as the main entrance, the stairs up to the private rooms, and the swinging doors to the kitchen. The late-night crowd was rowdy; he’d already watched the Gamorrean bouncers toss out four drunks and break up three fights, and he could feel the tension beginning to boil over again. Gebroila was hot, humid and swampy, like pretty much everywhere else on Hutta, and the dingy cantina catered to the less-desirable seedy underside. (To be fair, though, Theron was relatively confident Hutt Space didn’t have an _over_ -side, and ‘seedy’ was the descriptor best used from one end of the system to the other.)

He took a sip of his drink – overpriced whiskey barely a few steps above engine degreaser – and held back a grimace. Normally when he was working cantinas he asked to have his drinks watered down, but he was fairly certain the water wasn’t any safer to drink than the whiskey was and if his drink wasn’t already diluted to some degree he would eat his hat. Thirsty as he was, he didn’t fancy spending the rest of his stay in Gebroila huddled in the ‘fresher, regretting every life decision that led up to that moment.

Gaze roaming the cantina, Theron feigned an idle interest in the pale blue Twi’lek dancing on a nearby table; immediately behind her, he could see Miranza, still seated in a booth with the two men – one Devaronian, one human – Kaliyo had put her in contact with. The contacts were unknown variables, old friends or allies of Kaliyo from back in her anarchist days who were supposed to have a lead on some explosives Rekka and Barrazhat wanted for a distraction they were planning to run concurrent to the rescue of Caedan Savarr. Theron would have preferred for the two Mandalorians to be present, or for Vector to have been there, but Team Mando was off assisting Lana with an op on Zakuul and Vector was once again back on Alderaan with the Killiks. Theron didn't know what Lana’s team was up to, but Vector had filled him and Miranza in on the details of his own assignment: Imperial forces had been sounding out the Oroboro Nest to determine their suitability as fighters against the Eternal Empire, and Vector had gone to represent Killik interests (more specifically, to ensure the Imperial emissaries didn’t screw the Killiks over, although Vector would never be so crass as to say so outright). Thus meeting up with Kaliyo’s contacts fell to Miranza, with Theron serving as backup. Theron wasn’t completely thrilled with this plan, but Kaliyo spoke highly (or highly for _her_ ) of the two men and the explosives were being offered at a decent price.

So far everything seemed on the up and up. The two men were wary, as was to be expected for a couple of wanted terrorists in the middle of a crowded cantina in lawless Hutt Space, but they’d exchanged the correct signs and counter-signs with Miranza, and the three of them had settled down to negotiate terms with relative ease. Theron was keeping an eye on them, and from the looks of the conversation things were starting to wind down. Miranza hadn’t signalled to him for assistance and so far as Theron could tell no one else in the cantina was paying any attention to them. (For all that Miranza was a strikingly beautiful woman she was amazingly skilled at faded into the background when she wanted to.)

Theron was just starting to think things were going to go off without a hitch (for once) when he noticed something … off … about Miranza. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but from a distance she looked a little too loose and at ease, her body language shifting from that of a professional meeting with contacts to a woman relaxed on a night out on the town. She laughed a little too loud – he could hear her voice over the crowd and the music playing on the jukebox – and kept touching her face, her bare arms, the hand and arm of the Devaronian sitting beside her. If anything, it looked to Theron like she was flirting with her contacts, and that was just … weird. This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of op.

But she hadn’t signalled to him for backup, and she looked relaxed and happy, so Theron didn’t know what to think. He’d been keeping a close eye on her drink, which she’d barely touched, and no one had done anything to it so far as he could tell. Aside from Miranza’s casual physical contact with the two men - initiated entirely by her, never either of them - neither of them had touched her or entered into her personal space. He’d observed her from the second she walked into the cantina alone, and so far as he’d seen, nothing had happened to her. And yet …

 _Something_ was off. _Something_ was wrong. Theron hadn’t survived this long as a spy without trusting his instincts, and his instincts were _screaming_.

The human male stood, drawing back Miranza’s chair to help her up before holding out a hand to her. She took his hand, and stars help her, she _giggled_. Miranza Gerrick did not _giggle._ The Devaronian moved to her other side, slinging a proprietary arm around her waist, and Theron watched in increasing concern and anger as she seemed to nestle in against the man. It wasn’t jealousy that made Theron take notice, it was the wrongness of the situation. Miranza and Theron had discussed this op, and at no point had either of them even remotely suggested seduction as a viable course of action. If she had been planning to seduce the two men she would have signalled him. She had given no such signal. As the three of them moved away from the table, heading towards a flight of stairs that led up to some private rooms, Theron slipped out of his own booth and took off after them. The crowd closed around him, swallowing Miranza and her escorts up and cutting him off, but he had a strong idea that he knew where they were going so he did his best to maneuver through the sea of bodies. His increasing sense of panic made it difficult for him to keep from shoving people out of his way, but he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than was strictly necessary. The last thing he needed was to get caught in the middle of a massive bar fight, and this cantina was a powder-keg ready to blow at the slightest provocation.

He watched them go up the stairs. At the second step from the top Miranza stumbled and would have fallen flat on her face if the human hadn’t caught her.

Theron didn’t need Miranza to give the signal. _Nothing_ about this was right.

A cluster of Rodian men at the bottom of the stairs blocked Theron’s path, attempting to persuade a fine-boned Twi’lek dancer into giving them a discounted private dance. They were drunk and clumsy, more of an inconvenience than an actual deterrence, and it took some careful maneuvering for Theron to push past them. By the time he ascended up the stairs Miranza and the two contacts were gone, and he spent a few panicked seconds trying to determine which of the many closed doors down the long hallway would lead him back to her. Theron let his gut decide, and his gut settled on the door that was being guarded by a large Weequay who stood with his arms folded across a barrel chest.

Theron wound through a couple of aliens whose species he didn’t immediately recognize, passed a Sullustan puking outside an open doorway, and marched up to the large Weequay.

“Private party, _sleemo_ ,” the Weequay growled, moving to more effectively block the door. His obstinacy and his words confirmed Theron had the right room.

“Trust me, I’m on the guest list,” Theron replied, and before the Weequay could respond he drew back his arm and let fly, his fist connecting with the man’s flat nose with a satisfying crunch. ( _Fuck, he’d forgotten how much it hurt to hit the thick, leathery skin of the Weequay species._ ) Theron ignored the flare of pain in his hand and followed up his punch by grabbing the front of the Weequay’s jacket and yanking him forward into his upheld knee. The Weequay let out an agonized groan and dropped to the ground, both hands clutching his privates, blood spurting from his broken nose.

Theron calmly stepped over the man and threw open the door.

His calm immediately shattered and a blind fury took over him as he surveyed the scene.

Miranza lay sprawled on her back on a low couch, her bright red top flipped up to expose her bra – serviceable and black; this wasn’t supposed to be a seduction – as the Devaronian leaned over her, one hand pawing at her chest while the other worked to unfasten her pants. The human had a holocam in his hand, recording the whole thing, his other hand pinning Miranza’s wrists above her head. She was struggling ineffectually, her movements sluggish and uncoordinated, and she didn’t so much appear to be in distress as terribly confused. She just kept saying “ _Hey,_ guys” over and over again in a thick voice as if trying to persuade them to explain what was going on.

“Who the fuck are you?” the human snarled, just as the Devaronian managed to slide his hand down the front of Miranza’s pants. She gasped loudly and bucked against him, and Theron felt his anger ratchet up a few notches.

“Her fucking _husband_ ,” he snapped back before he lost the capability for coherent speech.

What followed happened in a red-tinged haze for Theron. He waded into the room, barely taking notice of his surroundings, and grabbed the Devaronian by both horns, hauling him up and away from Miranza. He used the man’s horns as a hand-hold to smash him face-first into his knee. There was another satisfying crunch and the Devaronian let out a wet-sounding cry of pain, his hands scrabbling up to try and break Theron’s grasp on his horns. Theron kneed him again – the urge to just take those horns and fucking _twist_ was almost overwhelming – and slammed the man’s head against the stained carpeted floor. The Devaronian dropped to his knees, struggling to get back up, but a fourth blow to the head took him out of the fight.

When Theron turned away from the now-unconscious – or possibly dead, he honestly didn’t care – Devaronian he saw that the human man had pulled Miranza to her feet and was holding her up as a shield between them. The holocam was on the floor, the red light flashing to indicate it was still recording. Miranza hung limp and loose in the man’s arms, held upright solely by his grip, and the lack of comprehension in her dark blue eyes would have sent Theron into a rage if he hadn’t already been there.

“You’re gonna wanna let her go,” Theron said, voice filled with quiet menace and the promise of further violence.

The man shoved Miranza at Theron and bolted for the door. Theron caught her and eased her back onto the couch before she could fall, then turned to catch up with the human. He dove forward, arms outstretched, and slammed into the man, propelling them both forward and into the door frame. The man connected with a single loud crack that might have come from his head, and then they both dropped to the ground, Theron on top, grabbing the human by the collar of his jacket and hammering his fist down with all the force he could muster.

He lost count of the number of times he punched the man in the face, but when he finally pulled away the man was almost unrecognizable as a human and Theron’s fist was bloodied and throbbing. It wasn’t until he heard a quiet thump behind him that the spell broke, and he drew back, turning to look at what had caught his attention.

Miranza was sprawled on the floor, having tumbled off the couch and found herself unable to move further. She was grinning at Theron, her eyes sleepy-lidded and a deep flush on her cheeks.

“ _Heeeeyyyyy,_ Theron,” she purred, struggling to right herself. Her voice sounded thick, almost drowsy, and she seemed to be having trouble focusing on him. “When’d you get here? We’re havin’ a parrrrrty.” She tried – and failed – to roll her R’s. She was an Imperial; she was fantastic at rolling her R’s. “Didn’t know you were invited … Tha’s good, tha’s real good.”

“Yeah, party’s over,” Theron replied, pushing up to his feet to stagger over to her. He made a point of stomping down on the holocam, crushing the delicate technology under the heel of his boot. The idea that any of this had been recorded made him feel sick to his stomach and made him want to go back over to the unconscious men and punch them all over again. Ignoring the ache in his hand he wrapped his fingers around Miranza’s wrist and pulled her up, and she let out a startled little laugh as she fetched up against him, completely unsteady on her feet. “Can you walk?”

“’Course’can,” Miranza mumbled. She attempted a few steps for demonstrational purposes, only for her knees to give out partway through the second step. She sank down to the ground, burying her face in her hands, and for one panicky second Theron thought she was crying before he realized she was giggling again – a helpless little sound completely out of character with the woman he loved.

Theron sighed heavily and scooped her up into his arms, cradling her in close to his chest as though he was afraid she might break. He stepped over the unconscious (or dead – Theron still didn’t care) human in the doorway, then over the (also unconscious – or dead) Weequay and cautiously made his way down the stairs. At another establishment on another planet the sight of a man carrying a barely conscious woman – her clothes in disarray, his hands bloodied – might have drawn some consternation, but at this cantina on Gebroila most of the patrons simply turned a blind eye to them both. Although the prospect of Miranza meeting Kaliyo’s contacts alone had never come up, the idea that she could have been here without Theron, without any form of backup whatsoever – and nobody would have given a shit what happened to her – filled Theron with white-hot rage and cold terror at the same time.

Arms trembling with angry energy, Theron stormed out of the cantina and did his best to ignore the way Miranza was playing with his hair and giggling – Force-dammit, _giggling_ – into his ear, her breath warm against his skin. Whatever she’d been drugged with had made her amorous, and her giggles soon gave way to sloppy wet kisses that trailed from his ear, along his jaw, and down the side of his neck. When she nipped his collarbone he was so startled he almost dropped her.

“Miranza, _stop_ it,” he hissed, jerking his face away – not that he had far to go. Miranza was in his arms, her head bare inches from his own, and she was wriggling and squirming in his grasp despite the fact that he was certain she was completely unable to walk under her own power. If he dropped her, she was going down and she was going to _stay_ there.

“You’re no fun,” she pouted – Force help him, she was _pouting_ \- this woman was going to be the death of him – carding her fingers through his hair. Even that movement was clumsy, as though she was petting him through three layers of thick gloves. She squirmed again and he nearly lost his grip. “M’skin’s all itchy. ‘M hot.”

“You’re drugged,” Theron informed her, although he had no kriffing clue how the two men had managed it. He’d been watching. Nothing had touched her drink, nobody had touched her until she started flirting with her contacts – and by then she was obviously already under the effects of whatever they’d drugged her with. And it wasn’t as though either Theron or Miranza were careless: they were professional spies, by the Force, and they knew what to be on guard for. They’d gone to this meet-up expecting Kaliyo’s contacts to be dangerous, and neither of them had let their guard down for a second.

_And it had happened anyway._

“Come on,” he said quietly, hoisting her up against his chest, feeling her settling against him. “Let’s get you back to the safe house and get you checked out.”

“Mm, okay,” Miranza slurred. She gave him a sleepy smile, petting his mouth with clumsy fingers. “You’re so pretty.”

Theron rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut, hoping she would do the same. She didn’t, however; instead Miranza kept up a running stream-of-consciousness commentary, mumbling an incessant number of comments, questions and statements ranging from praising his eyes (“almost like gold”) to his lips (“I just wanna nibble”) to his ass (he couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, but he was pretty sure she said it was the best ass in the Republic, maybe even the entire galaxy – and then she started crying because she couldn’t decide whose ass was better, his or Vector’s). It was cringe-worthy and Theron tried to tune it out, because he knew Miranza would be horribly, _horribly_ embarrassed when the drugs wore off and she was back to her usual self.

He managed to tune her out for the whole walk (stumble?) back to the safe house, but as he was putting her to bed – after taking a sampling of her blood to check against known drugs and toxins – her eyes suddenly flashed open and she weakly caught hold of his face between her hands.

She gasped out a word – a name – that Theron wanted very much to pretend he hadn’t heard. She was slurring, stumbling over syllables, but he couldn’t mistake _that_ name for anything else.

_Amrielle._

“What about Amrielle, Miri?” he asked her, tugging the blankets up over her and sitting on the edge of the bed to wait for the blood-test results. He tried to sound nonchalant; he didn’t think he succeeded, but Miranza was too far-gone to notice.

At first he didn’t think she’d heard him, that perhaps she’d finally dozed off. She was snuggled in under the blankets, her eyes half-closed and out of focus, and she seemed barely aware of his presence. After a moment she struggled to a half-sitting position and brushed a hand over his mouth, over his lips.

“Said I can’t trust you,” she whispered, her glazed-over eyes drifting dreamily away from his face. “Said you’re a liar.”

The scanner beeped, distracting Theron, and he glanced down to read the results. “And you’re gonna believe her?” he murmured absently, reviewing the scans from the blood-test. He was familiar with the drug she’d been given and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find it used in a seedy cantina on Hutta: the name was something long and Huttese, and it had originally been designed by Hutt scientists for use on Twi’lek slaves, to make them more malleable – specifically, to make female Twi’leks more _pliable_ as slaves in the sex trade. It had the unwanted (when applied to slaves) side effect of making the user more talkative, so the Empire had snatched it up for interrogation purposes, but the results on humans were unpredictable: yes, it would make the subject more pliable and much more talkative, but it was difficult to get them to focus on any one topic and impossible to properly and coherently interrogate. Sure, the victim would blab all their secrets, but that meant they would blab _all_ their secrets, from their most mundane childhood sins to every last random thought and fancy. Nobody wanted talkative slaves and no interrogator wanted to sift through their subject’s entire life story just to get state secrets, so the drug was effectively shelved – but it was cheap and relatively easy to manufacture, and so it ended up being used for even more nefarious purposes. Like rendering women unconscious so immoral assholes could abuse them in private.

Theron clenched his fist, studying the bloody scrapes and bruises over his knuckles. He needed to put some ice on it, if he wanted to be able to use his hand tomorrow. He wondered if he had killed the human or the Weequay, and found that he still didn’t care – in fact, he rather hoped he did. The suspicious part of him wondered if Kaliyo had set Miranza up, but he couldn’t think of any reason for the Rattataki woman to betray her former crewmate like that. Kaliyo and Miranza were friends, insofar as Kaliyo Djannis had friends. In fact, he suspected that if he asked Kaliyo about this, if it turned out _he_ hadn’t killed the three men, the Rattataki would hunt them down and finish the job for him.

He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, then used his datapad to look the drug up on the HoloNet. It’d been a while since he’d last had cause to research it, and he couldn’t remember the treatment. Their safe house had limited supplies in the medkit and he was reluctant to leave Miranza alone while he went to get more, but it looked like the only thing to be done was to let her sleep it off and keep her hydrated. He could manage that much, at least, although she was going to feel miserable – and embarrassed – come morning.

Miranza had lost focus again and was babbling about a trip she’d gone on as a schoolgirl, which Theron was rather skeptical about since he knew her own childhood was as unorthodox as his and he was positive she had never been a part of a traditional educational system. This was the other reason the drug didn’t work well for interrogations: some of the random rambling was of a more fanciful nature, stringing various memories and experiences together into one unreliable narrative. When she started talking about swimming with Nautolans and learning how to dive for pearls Theron felt fairly confident that this particular story was a bizarre fabrication.

Until she mentioned Amrielle again.

“What’s that?” he asked her, stroking her hair away from her face. She was sweating heavily and her curls stuck to her damp forehead. He drew back her blankets, not wanting her to overheat, but then her teeth started chattering almost right away and so he pulled them back up again. “What about Amrielle, Miri?”

She spoke, her words a confusing jumble, spilling out over lips gone numb and around a tongue that seemed too thick for her mouth. The only thing he caught was ‘contacting me.’

“She’s contacting you?” he repeated, once again certain that Miranza was mixing reality and fantasy in her drug-addled mind. “Amrielle? Amrielle’s contacting you?”

Miranza nodded, trying to scrunch her face against the pillow as if trying to hide herself. “Didn’t wanna tell you.”

A chill worked its way down Theron’s spine. “You didn’t want to tell me, _what_?”

“Amrielle.” Miranza licked her lips clumsily, eyes flashing open for a brief instant to rest on Theron’s face. She shifted in bed, trying to get comfortable, and drew the blanket up to her chin. Her eyes closed again. “Sendin’ me messages. ‘Bout you. Vector. Warnin’ me. Threatenin’ you. Didn’t want you t’ worry.”

Theron wanted to grab Miranza by the shoulders and shake her and demand answers to the sudden flood of questions filling his mind. Amrielle had been contacting her? For how long? And how? How the kriff was that crazy Nautolan bitch able to find Miranza? And why hadn’t Miranza _said_ anything? But grabbing her would serve no purpose except to hurt her and frighten her, and in her current bewildered state she likely had no clue what she was even saying, nor could he find a way to direct her responses. She was drugged and sick and confused, and the last think she needed was for him to start trying to interrogate her.

_Stars, Miranza, what the kriff have you been going through?_

“Okay,” he said softly, stroking her hair again. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Okay. Just get some sleep, and we … we can talk about this later. When you’re feeling better.”

“Don’t wanna,” Miranza mumbled, sounding miserable.

 _Yeah,_ Theron thought, chewing hard on his lower lip. _Me neither._

O o O o O

Theron was woken abruptly the next morning by the ‘fresher door slamming shut, followed by running water and the distinct sound of retching. He sat up on the couch, groaning at the kinks in his neck and back, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. The ice pack he’d wrapped around his right hand fell away, landing limp and soggy on the floor with a dull thump. His hand was a mass of bruises and cuts, but a cautious flex of his fingers showed full range of motion so he felt confident he hadn’t broken anything. (And if he _had_ broken a finger or two punching those bastards’ faces in, he would’ve considered the injury well-earned.) He hadn’t slept well, having chosen the couch over sharing the bed with Miranza – not while she was in this malleable, vulnerable state – and being plagued by nightmares of Amrielle, Samar and his experiences while under the conditioning of the Castellan restraints. Miranza had spent much of the night drifting from one nigh-incoherent subject to the next before finally falling into a restless sleep sometime an hour or so before dawn.

Now it seemed she was awake again, and feeling every bit as miserable as the HoloNet report had suggested.

Sighing, Theron stood and moved over to the tiny kitchenette, pouring a glass of water and setting it, along with two myocaine tablets, on the nearby table for when Miranza finally vacated the ‘fresher. He then went about preparing the caf; his own stomach was feeling uncertain and judging by the noises from the ‘fresher he didn’t think Miranza was likely to be all that hungry, so he decided against making breakfast. They could eat later, if they decided they were more hungry than nauseated. When Miranza at last stumbled out of the ‘fresher looking pale and drawn she sagged down into one of the chairs at the table and stared blearily at the glass of water in front of her.

“What the fuck?” she asked, voicing the question to no one in particular.

Uncertain as to what, exactly, she was referring to – the water? the painkillers? her current circumstances? – Theron decided to play it safe and asked, “What do you remember from last night?”

“Not … a lot,” Miranza answered hesitantly. Her voice was rough, likely as much from throwing up as from her incessant rambling the night before. She’d talked herself hoarse before finally falling asleep - or passing out. She looked up at him, her face too-pale and her eyes somewhat glassy-looking. “Was I …” She paused, licking her lips, her gaze dropping back down to the glass. Her face was unreadable. Steeling herself, she forced herself to continue, in a voice that sounded like she had been swallowing shards of glass, “Was I raped last night?”

Theron let out an explosive sigh and moved around the table, immediately drawing her into his arms. She resisted for about half a second, stiffening ever so slightly before sagging against him. “No,” he assured her, stroking her back, “No, they didn’t get that far. They drugged you, took you up to their room, but I got there before … before anything bad could happen.”

“Okay.” Miranza nodded, pressing her chin against his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He drew back a little and kissed her on the forehead, just below her sweaty hairline. She tasted salty. “Don’t thank me. I should’ve seen it sooner, should’ve known something was wrong before –”

“Theron.” It was Miranza’s turn to pull back and kiss him, this time on the mouth. He could feel her lips trembling under his. He didn’t think she’d had a chance to brush her teeth, but he didn’t particularly care if her breath smelled faintly of vomit; he wasn’t about to turn her away. “Don’t. You stopped them. I’m fine. A little sick, but … but fine.”

He nodded, resting his forehead against hers. She was warm and shaking slightly, and he tightened his arms around her, offering her as much comfort and support as she would take. She _was_ fine, aside from the lingering side effects of the drugs she’d been given. She had been through worse – they both had – and as he said, he had stopped the men before they could go through with their sick plans. He wondered if they were dead, if anyone had gone to investigate the disturbance. A part of him – and not a small part, either, and he knew Master Zho would likely have been horrified by that realization – hoped they were dead, that they had died of their injuries. He wished he’d had the time to make certain, but Miranza had taken priority, and getting her out of there had been far more important than getting revenge.

As satisfying as that would have been.

Drawing back again after a few minutes, Theron ran his hands down Miranza’s arms, debating with himself. This could wait. This _should_ wait. Miranza wa sick, exhausted. Neither of them were in the right frame of mind for this. But ... he had to know. Finally he blurted out the question that had kept him up most of the night:

“Has Amrielle been contacting you?”

Miranza froze, blue eyes going wide. After a moment she dropped her head, stray curls falling in her face, and said, “No.”

A chill raced down Theron’s spine, not unlike the one he’d experienced the night before when he first realized what Miranza was talking about. She was lying. To _him._ Miranza was lying to _him_ about _Amrielle_ and he had no idea what to make of that. He pulled away even further, feeling Miranza stiffen as he released her, and sat back, brushing the hair out of her face so he could see her expression. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. That was something, that as good a liar as she was, she still couldn’t meet his eyes and lie to his face.

“Miri …,” he began, only to trail off uncertainly. “Miranza, please … Don’t lie to me, okay? Tell me the truth. Is Amrielle contacting you? Is that why you’ve been so … so off lately?”

Miranza’s eyes darted up to his, a shocked expression on her face. “Off? What do you mean, _off_?”

He scowled. “You know what I mean. You’ve been acting weird for months now, ever since … Stars, I don’t even know when it started. Your nightmares have been worse, you’ve been distant … Vector and I both noticed and –”

“Oh, you _both_ noticed, did you?” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest. He couldn’t help but notice that her hands were shaking, although she tried to hide it by tucking them under her elbows. “I’m surprised you noticed anything, the way things have been lately.”

“What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?” Theron shook his head and bounded up to his feet, starting to pace the floor. The safe house wasn’t that large, just enough room for a bed, a couch, a kitchenette and a table, with the ‘fresher tucked away to one side. He took five steps before coming up against the kitchenette and turning around again. He threw his hands up in the air, his worry about Miranza and the news about Amrielle coming to a head. He knew this wasn’t the right time to ask her about this, not after the night she’d had, not after the ordeal she’d just been through, but _stars_ , how _long_ had it been going on? How long had Amrielle been contacting her? How long had he and Vector been left out of the loop? If the only way to get her to talk was to hammer at her after she’d spent the night baring her soul under the influence of what effectively amounted to date-rape drugs, then kriff it, he was going to do it. He’d hate himself for it later. He’d apologize for it later.

“What’s going on, Miri?” He tried, _Force help him_ , Theron _tried_ to soften his tone, tried not to sound so accusatory. His voice was quiet, but he knew his tone wasn’t soft or kind or patient. He sounded angry – because he _was_. He was angry at Miranza for keeping things from him and Vector, he was angry at Amrielle for coming after her – after _them_ – again, and by the Force he was angry at those assholes for drugging Miranza in the first place, even if that was apparently the only way to get her to spill her guts. “Last night, you said … You said Amrielle had been contacting you. That she’d been sending you messages, warning you, making threats. Is that true? Has Amrielle been contacting you?”

“Theron …” Miranza stood and took a few shaky steps away from him, turning her back to him. She wrapped her arms around herself and he could see that despite her best efforts she was still shaking. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Then when?” He hated the accusatory note in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Stars, he wanted a drink, wanted to get the kriff off of Hutta, wanted to forget about all of this – but he couldn’t, and he was terribly afraid that if he let the subject drop now, Miranza would never let him bring it up again. Who knew how long she’d been keeping things to herself?

Force, there was a reason it was hard to date a spy. There was a reason Theron sucked at relationships, and it wasn’t just because of mommy issues.

“When, Miranza?” he found himself asking, the words grinding out through clenched teeth. He couldn’t stop himself. This wasn’t ripping the bandage off, this was taking a scalpel and cutting down to the bone. “The next time you get doped to the gills and decide to spill your guts? Then? A week from now? A year from now? Never? Because I’m thinking it’s never. I’m thinking you’ll do your best to sweep this all under the rug so that we don’t have to talk about it, _ever._ Am I right?”

“Fuck you, Theron.” Miranza stomped away, heading towards where their bags were neatly tucked up against the wall. He found himself following her, his fingers curling around her arm, intent upon pulling her back to him so that they could continue this conversation (this fight), but she wrenched her arm free with a suddenness that make his injured fingers ache. Grabbing her bag – for one terrifying moment he thought that this was it, she was packing up her things and she was just fucking leaving him, that she would rather _leave_ than discuss this topic with him – she ripped it open and began rifling through it, her hands shaking so hard she was having a hard time sorting through her things. He hated that she was shaking and he hated that she was upset and he wanted to stop all of this but he was afraid that if he did so Miranza would never let this subject be brought up again.

Then she stood again and slapped her hand against his chest, hard, and he felt something small digging into him. Looking down, he saw that she was holding out a dataspike and that that was what was pressing against his chest. He held out his hand and she dropped the dataspike onto his palm before clenching both her hands into fists – to stop the trembling, he thought – and turning away.

Miranza hesitated in the doorway of the ‘fresher, one hand on the frame, and glanced back at him over her shoulder. Her face was set in stone, her eyes glinting with unshed tears.

“You want to know?” she said, sounding defeated and exhausted and making him hate himself all over again for putting that in her voice. “Knock yourself out, Theron.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how when you’re angry and hurting and frightened you try to do the right thing but end up making it worse? _Yeeeeaaaahhhh ..._
> 
> Edited to add: This chapter's title is from the song of the same name by The Weeknd.


	19. Breathe Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron finds out what Miranza's been hiding. It goes poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that this chapter contains scenes of panic attacks/dissociative states, mind control, slavery (including sexual slavery), coerced violence, rape/sexual assault, general mind-fuckery, mild gore, torture and threats of torture, and badly-negotiated rough sex (neither safe nor sane but 100% consensual). (I’ve tried to include every relevant trigger-warning here but if I’ve missed something please let me know - this chapter is dark and I don’t want to hurt my readers.)
> 
> This entire chapter is NSFW, but the second half in particular is _definitely_ NSFW. I don't even know what happened there, but I'm clearly not in charge here.

_**Safe House, Gebroila, Hutta, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The ‘fresher door slammed shut, but there was no follow-up noises: no running water, no retching, no crying. Just silence. Theron stood, the dataspike clutched in one hand, and thought about following after Miranza – thought about banging on the door, apologizing to her, falling at her feet and begging her not to be angry with him. He did none of those things. He was angry, and although he knew his timing could have been better, he thought his anger was justified.

Amrielle had been contacting Miranza – for who knew how long? – and Miranza had been keeping that from him and Vector. Bad enough that she had been lying and hiding it from Vector, but that she had been keeping it from _Theron_ , Amrielle’s _victim_ … She knew, better than anyone else in the galaxy, what Theron had gone through while in Amrielle’s custody, and while most of his abuse had come at the hands of Samar there was no mistaking the fact that Amrielle was every bit as culpable and her continued existence in their lives presented a very real and present threat.

Yes, Theron was very, _very_ justifiably angry.

Theron’s hand clenched into a fist, the dataspike bending slightly with the pressure.

 _Fuck her,_ he thought, and he wasn’t entirely certain whether he meant Amrielle … or Miranza.

There was no question of “should I or shouldn’t I?” in Theron’s mind. Whatever was on the dataspike, whatever Miranza had been hiding, Theron wanted to know. He _needed_ to know. He was a spy, curiosity was in his nature. Beyond that, whatever secrets were on that dataspike involved him, and after months of silence and worry and knowing that something was wrong with Miranza, now that he had answers in his hands he had no intentions whatsoever of letting them slip away.

Pushing aside thoughts of Miranza and the lingering guilty that he had forced the issue when she wasn’t anywhere near the right head-space to deal with it, Theron crossed the room and sat down at the small desk in the corner. It was barely more than a table, really, but there was a rickety wooden chair in front of it and a portable console on the surface, so it was what passed for a desk in their safe house. It took a few seconds for the ancient console to boot up, seconds Theron spent turning the dataspike over and over again in his hands. Second he spent working up his nerve. Once the console was up and running he inserted the dataspike and waited a few more seconds as static filled the tiny screen.

The static faded, and Theron’s mouth went dry.

He remembered this scene: the penthouse suite on Corellia, hours after he had returned from Belsavis after nearly murdering Miranza at Samar’s command. He’d been injured, exhausted and deeply shaken by what he’d nearly been forced to do – even now, years later, he could still remember the feeling of Miranza’s throat grasped between his hands, the way the light had dimmed in her beautiful blue eyes as he’d tried to choke the life out of her – and had barely been released from medical when Samar had pounced on him and dragged him to bed for some celebratory fucking.

Theron rubbed a hand over his face, scarcely noticing the way his fingers trembled. His eyes were riveted on the screen; he couldn’t have looked away if he’d been forced.

 _“You like her, don’t you?”_ Theron didn’t need the sound to know exactly what the image of Samar was saying, his lips close to the ear of the Theron on the screen. There _was_ sound, but he didn’t need it. He remembered everything Samar had said, every word he’d whispered, every threat and every promise he’d made. Samar gripped the hair of the on-screen Theron and yanked his head back, planting a line of kisses down Theron’s throat. Theron – the real and present Theron, the one who couldn’t tear his eyes away from the nightmare unfolding before him – felt the breath catch in his lungs. His heartbeat sounded painfully loud in his ears, almost louder than the scene before him. _“Oh, the things I’m going to make you do to her. We’ll have fun, you and me. You’ll see.”_

Samar had proceeded to whisper a litany of all the filthy, violent, degrading things he intended to do to Miranza – the things he intended to make Theron do to her. The entire time he was talking, he was stripping Theron down, removing one article of clothing after another. He could have made Theron undress himself; he had Theron’s keyword – _atychiphobia,_ the fear of failure, that _fucking bastard_ – but Samar had more fun taking charge, being in complete control, peeling the layers away before he did whatever the hell he wanted to Theron’s unresisting body. Sitting in the safe house, his eyes locked on the screen, Theron watched himself being undressed, listened to the promises Samar made. His hands felt cold, tingling – numb, even. He couldn’t make himself lift his hand to turn the console off. Years later and miles away from the situation, with his abuser dead and his mind and body his own again, Theron still couldn’t escape the power Samar had had over him.

He watched the whole thing. He’d already lived through it once, but somehow it was almost worse, seeing it through the impartial eyes of the holorecorder and knowing that Miranza had seen this.

When it ended, when Samar had had his fill of Theron and Theron was nothing more than a trembling, sobbing wreck left lying facedown on the bed, Samar began stroking Theron’s hair and cuddling in close – as if they were lovers, as if –

 _Fuck, no,_ Theron thought, remembering what came next. Miranza had seen this. Miranza had seen _this._ Theron tried to breathe, tried to suck air into his lungs, but his chest was tight and blood was rushing in his ears. He tried to move, tried to turn the console off, to make it stop, but he was frozen, his heart pounding in his chest. _No, no … nononononono …_

Samar cupped on-screen-Theron’s jaw and drew him in close for a kiss, long and lingering. When he drew away he smirked, then said, in an almost sing-song voice, _“You know what I want, Theron.”_

On-screen-Theron scowled. Real-life Theron shivered, vision tunnelling, greying around the edges. He watched Samar slap him, hard, across the face; he could still remember how that had felt. On screen, Theron didn’t move, didn’t even wince. He was stoic, resigned. Samar had done this before, so many times before, and on-screen-Theron knew what was coming next, just as real-life-Theron knew. Samar’s smirk broadened, turned into something predatory and hard.

_“Keyword: Atychiphobia – tell me you love me, Theron. I want to hear it.”_

“I love you,” Theron whispered out loud, even as he watched himself – heard himself – say the words to Samar. He didn’t know why he’d spoken; he felt like he didn’t have control over himself, any more than the past version of him did. It made no sense: the Castellan restraints had been broken, Samar’s use of his keyword held no more power over him. He said the words and they echoed, loud and accusing, inside his head, bouncing around inside his brain like a bullet ricocheting off the inside of his skull.

 _“Say it again, Theron,”_ Samar said, and this time he didn’t use the keyword to compel him – the words tumbled, flat and emotionless, from Theron’s lips. He remembered thinking Samar would order it again, tell him to say it with feeling – _say it like you mean it, Theron_ – but he didn’t. Instead Samar started laughing, grabbing Theron by the hair again and forcing his head up into another long, lingering kiss, like they were lovers, like Samar truly believed the lies that he forced Theron to say. The scene ended, although Theron knew it hadn’t ended then, that Samar had been ready for round two, that it had only ended when Samar beat him into unconsciousness, and even then that hadn’t _really_ been the end of things: it had been weeks before Theron and Miranza had escaped.

The scene changed, fading to black and then back until it was a close-up shot of Amrielle, smiling serenely into the camera. Her black eyes glittered with malicious amusement and she cocked her head to one side, her head-tails sliding off one shoulder, the decorative beads clicking together.

_“Hello again, Miranza. I hope you’ve been enjoying my little gifts for you. It’s funny, I didn’t realize how much holo-footage Samar had collected of his time with you and Theron. He really was fond of our boy Theron, wasn’t he? I think, if you hadn’t killed him, he might have kept Theron forever even after our work was done. Could you imagine, Miranza? How long do you think it would have taken for your little Republic spy to snap?”_

Theron’s hands clenched in his lap, but it did nothing to stop the shaking. He could imagine it. He could imagine it extremely well – a lifetime under Samar’s command, the Castellan restraints never broken, dancing to Samar’s tune and fulfilling the man’s every twisted fantasy. If he and Miranza hadn’t escaped, Theron knew that the moment they finished completing the Star Cabal’s work Samar would have made him follow through on every single threat he’d ever made against her. Samar would have made Theron torture her – the woman he loved – until she was dead. Samar would have made Theron do unspeakable things, and Theron knew this, because Samar _had_ made him do unspeakable things, had made him _say_ things, _do_ things –

Theron couldn’t breathe. His world had narrowed down to the sight of Amrielle’s smug face, but the words he heard were spoken in Samar’s voice, smooth, silky threats whispered as promises of Theron’s future. He didn’t notice himself slipping off of the chair, and the pain of striking the floor shifted into the memory of the abuse he had suffered at Samar’s hands. He couldn’t see anything but Amrielle’s face, couldn’t hear anything but Samar’s voice. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t escape, just as he couldn’t escape years ago when Samar had his keyword, when the restraints kept him a prisoner inside his own body, locked inside his own mind.

He tried to struggle. He hadn’t been able to struggle before, but he could do so now, and he flailed, legs kicking outward, arms scrabbling for purchase. Pain blossomed in his hand when he connected with something solid. He could hear laughing – Amrielle? Samar? – and distantly, in the background, a faint buzzing sound that might have been the blood rushing in his head or it might have been a voice whispering to him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight, couldn’t escape and then hands were on him, pinning him down, and Theron _screamed_ and kept on screaming –

Samar loomed over him, face pale and slack in death even as his brown eyes shone with malice and hunger. His throat gaped open, dried blood gone black, smeared down across his bared chest. He reached for Theron, and Theron grabbed him, hands closing around the bastard’s throat, slippery in the blood, and Samar just laughed even as he clawed at Theron’s hands and arms with razor-sharp talons. Theron squeezed, fingers tightening, Samar’s eyes bulging as his air was cut off. The buzzing in his ears grew louder, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of Samar’s voice, and how, _how_ was Samar still talking, still laughing, with Theron’s hands wrapped around his throat? Why wouldn’t the bastard just die already?!

Theron couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. Samar was there, he was laughing, even with Theron’s hands clawing at his neck, even as Theron struggled to get on top of the man, to bash his head against the ground, just so he could fucking silence him –

_“Tell me you love me, Theron …”_

Theron’s hands fell away from Samar’s neck and he lashed out, sudden and vicious, his right hand connecting with solid flesh and the sound was familiar, that crunch, he’d felt it … when? Yesterday? When he’d … what? When he’d hit that man, that human who’d drugged Miranza, when he’d punched him until his knuckles were bloody and –

He felt it, the throbbing ache in his hand that spread up to his elbow, and it was _real,_ it wasn’t the remembered pain of his time with Samar, it was the real pain that he’d caused himself when he’d punched Miranza’s assailants.

Samar’s face filled Theron’s vision, bright red blood spilling from his nose – when had that happened? – and his eyes, dark blue – no, Samar’s eyes had been brown – peering down at Theron in panic.

Stark horror tore through Theron as Samar’s face shifted, as the nightmare turned to reality and it was Miranza staring down at him, her face bloody, dark bruises already beginning to form around the pale column of her throat, her blonde hair falling in her face. The buzzing in his ears was getting louder and louder, drowning out Samar’s voice, and he felt the distant sting of an insect on his arm. Cold filled his veins, radiating outwards from the insect sting, and sudden exhaustion pulled at him.

The last thing he heard before unconsciousness claimed him was Amrielle’s mocking laughter.

O o O o O

“ – implanted in my spine, and I just walked in masquerading as a droid –”

Warm fingers carded through Theron’s hair and brushed over his forehead, smoothing over his implants. He struggled to open his eyes, then gave it up as a bad job and let the exhaustion pull him back under. He was warm and safe, his head pillowed on something soft, a light weight resting on his chest and a gentle hand stroking over his head. Everything ached and he was more tired than he could ever remember being in his life, but there was warmth and kindness and he knew he was no longer trapped with Samar or Amrielle. He remembered that those nightmare days were over, the conditioning had been broken, and he was _free._

“—and the next thing I know there’s a stinking Pub agent talking to me instead of Lana, and I remember thinking, _Damn, he sounds hot even if he_ is _a Pub_ –”

He knew that voice. It wasn’t Samar or Amrielle. It was warm and feminine and the accent was distinctly Imperial, and yet for some reason that accent – which should have belonged to an enemy – was so familiar to him. She was whispering, voice huskier than he remembered, with a raspy quality that bothered him somewhat. She sounded … sad. Upset. _Worried._ And it didn’t match her words, which were deliberately light, her breath soft and slightly minty on his face.

“—that time Jakarro tried to convince Lana to let him try eating one of the Rishii –”

Theron opened his eyes to find Miranza gazing down at him, guilt and anguish on her face, in her dark blue eyes. Her face was too pale, her eyes opened a bit too wide, but when she saw him looking up at her she smiled, a weak, watery smile, and something warm and wet splashed onto his forehead.

“I’m so sorry, Theron,” she said quietly, choking back a sob.

“What …” Theron blinked and thought about trying to sit up, but his head was cushioned on Miranza’s lap and her hand was gentle on his cheek and he really, really didn’t feel like moving. His surroundings came back to him, slowly but surely, and he realized he was lying on the bed in their safe house on Gebroila. His hand was cold and throbbing, and he could feel a dozen little stinging cuts on his arms, but above all else he was exhausted, a bone-deep weariness that filled him and left him utterly incapable of movement. “How … how did I get here?”

Miranza drew in a breath to speak, her sudden wince making Theron focus in on her face, making him take note of the bruising on her cheekbone, the blood caking her nostrils – and the dark lines of bruising around her throat.

“Shit, Miranza,” Theron breathed as realization set in, memories of his nightmare – flashback? dissociative episode? – coming back to him, only instead of Samar’s face he saw Miranza’s … and knew that it had been her he had tried to choke, her he had struck.

Her he had hurt.

“What did I do to you?” he asked, trying to pull away – and failing, too exhausted and uncoordinated to pull out from under Miranza’s hand on his chest.

“Nothing I didn’t have coming,” Miranza replied, hanging her head so that her hair fell in her face. She sounded awful, like it hurt her to speak, like even the simple act of breathing caused her pain.

“Shit, Miranza, _no._ ” This time Theron did manage to pull away, pushing himself up to a sitting position – his head spun a little, his vision greying out for a second – and leaning back so that he could get a better look at her. She just didn’t sound awful, she looked it, too: she’d been crying and her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks tear-stained. In addition to the bruising around her throat Theron could see scratches, and he remembered clawing at Samar’s neck and knew it hadn’t been Samar he’d been attacking. He lifted a hand to the bruise on her cheek and Miranza flinched back before catching herself, her eyes closing on more unshed tears.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Miranza said softly, and at first he thought she meant he wasn’t supposed to see her flinching away from him, but then she continued, “I was going to destroy the dataspike. I wasn’t going to let you see that.”

“Were you ever going to tell us?” He couldn’t help the faint note of accusation in his voice, and she flinched again, pain and shame flashing across her face.

“I don’t … I …” She floundered for a moment, then finally met his eyes and nodded once, slowly. “Yes. I just … I wanted to track her down first, wanted to have a solid plan of action before I … before I said anything. I didn’t want you to … to see … that.”

Theron licked his lips; they felt dry and cracked, his mouth parched. His throat ached, as if he’d been shouting, and he dimly remembered screaming although he didn’t know if he’d actually done it or simply imagined doing it. “I take it … Were there more? More … uh … more messages?”

Miranza nodded again, looking miserable. “She’s been leaving them in our dead drops and safe houses all over the place. The last one – the one you – the one you saw – she left that on New Plympto. I don’t know how she’s tracking us down. I wanted to figure that out before I said anything. I thought, if I had more information, more to work with, that it wouldn’t be so bad. I thought I could handle it, but –”

“Stars, Miranza. You should’ve told us. You should’ve said something –”

“Don’t you think I _know_ that? Don’t you think I wanted to?” She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth on the bed. “I didn’t want to worry you. You and Vector, you’ve both had so much on your minds –”

“We have been worrying about _you,_ you little idiot!” Theron snapped, and could have slapped himself at the look of guilt that crossed Miranza’s face. It wasn’t like him to resort to name-calling. At her crestfallen look he opened his arms and drew her to him, cradling her against his chest, his chin resting on top of her head. He could feel her trembling against him. “Miri, you shouldn’t have been dealing with this by yourself. I just –”

“You never told us,” Miranza whispered, cutting him off.

“What?”

“About Samar. About what he … what he made you say.”

Theron winced. Samar’s voice whispered through his mind: _“Keyword: Atychiphobia – tell me you love me, and make me believe it.”_ Out loud he said, “I didn’t want you to know.”

He couldn’t have explained his thought processes or why he had held back on telling Vector and Miranza. It had taken him so damned long to say those words to the two of them – _I love you_ – even though he’d been thinking it for ages, and yet Samar had forced them from him so often he had found himself saying it even without his keyword being used. Never in front of Miranza, though – never when it wasn’t just him and Samar. Samar had made a secret of it, and in so doing had made Theron afraid to speak of it. Because what could it mean, that he could say something like that – and sound so kriffing convincing – to a man he loathed, a man who still haunted his nightmares years after his death, and yet it had been such a struggle to say it to the two people he really, truly, legitimately loved?

_What the fuck was wrong with him?_

“It’s never going to be over, is it?” he asked at last, tightening his hold on Miranza and speaking the words into her hair. Her hair smelled like the fruity shampoo she favoured, but under that scent he could smell sweat and blood. “That fucker is dead and he still has power over me.”

“I’m going to kill that fucking bitch.” Miranza’s voice was soft but firm and filled with hatred, and when she lifted her face her eyes were full of quiet rage. “I’m going to find her and I’m going to carve her heart out with my bare hands, and then it will be over. She’s not going to hurt you again, Theron, I promise you that.”

Theron opened his mouth to tell her she couldn’t make promises like that, but before he could speak she was pressing her lips to his, silencing him. Five minutes ago he would have sworn he didn’t have the energy to feel anything more than exhaustion and despair – stars, five _seconds_ ago he wouldn’t have thought he’d have the energy, but Miranza’s lips were warm against his and he couldn’t have said whether it was him or her that drew the other down onto the bed save that the next thing he knew they were tangled up in each other’s arms, hastily trying to strip each other’s clothing away.

“I _promise_ you, Theron,” Miranza said again, her hands gliding down his arms until he felt her fingers wrapping around his wrists. Then she was drawing his hands up over his head and pinning him down on the mattress, straddling his waist and leaning down to kiss him until they were both breathless.

“Yes,” Theron agreed, although he couldn’t have said whether he was agreeing to her promise or to wherever this sudden burst of passion was leading – a mixture of both, probably, because there was no mistaking the intensity in her voice and stars knew, even after the whole shitty night they’d just had, even after whatever the fuck he’d just been through, he still wanted her and could no more stop his body from responding to hers than he could stop the sun from shining each morning.

“Yes,” Theron said again, just for the sake of saying it, for the thrill of being able to give consent, and then Miranza was crawling down his body, her hands releasing his wrists in order to begin tugging at the fastenings of his pants, and when he said yes a third time it was because her mouth had closed, wet and warm, around his cock and _oh stars yes_. He surged upwards, his hips bucking, and she let him, opening her mouth wide to let him fuck her face, his hands tangling in her hair. He was never this rough with her, never let himself just use her for his own pleasure, but she was guiding him, fingers digging in hard against his hipbones, taking him in as far as she could until she was gagging and coughing around him and even then she didn’t let him pull away.

When she finally _did_ let Theron pull away it was because he was close and she didn’t want him to finish in her mouth. He grabbed her by the hips, flipping her over onto her stomach, and she had to lift her ass up to help him take her pants off. His pants and both their shirts were already gone, along with her bra, tossed somewhere on the floor behind them. He slid his hands between her legs, finding her dripping and ready for him, and he groaned, deep and low in his chest, parting her, hearing her whimper at his touch. Theron pushed her down onto the bed, yanking her hips to him, sheathing himself inside her in one hard stroke that drove the breath from her lungs.

Theron couldn’t have said what possessed him in that moment, save that he suddenly, desperately wanted to wash away every last memory of Samar. He wanted to bury himself inside Miranza until she was the only thing he knew, the only thing he remembered, and with his hands and mouth and cock he could smooth away that bastard’s touch once and for all.

He pulled her upright, slamming his hips against hers, nearly making her fall forward onto the bed again. He twined the fingers of his right hand through her curls, twisting his fist through her hair, relishing the sudden flare of pain in his hand. He was starting to wonder if maybe he _had_ broken something when he’d punched those assholes back at the cantina, and yet he found that in this exact moment he didn’t give a shit, he would worry about it later. His lips roamed down Miranza’s neck and across the smooth line of her shoulder, and he bit down, hearing her gasp, feeling her tighten around him. Miranza yanked herself free, pulling away from him so that she could wriggle around until they were facing each other again. She slapped him once, hard, across the face, then fisted a handful of his hair to pull him in close and kiss him breathless. He pushed her down onto her back and entered her again, sliding his hands under her legs to guide her ankles up over his shoulders. She slapped him again and he growled at her, baring his teeth, and caught her wrist so he could pin her arm to the bed.

“Harder,” she gasped, then gasped again when his mouth closed around one nipple. He sucked hard, making her whimper again, releasing the nipple with an audible pop before catching it in his teeth and biting down until she was shuddering under him. _“Harder.”_

Miranza raked her nails down Theron’s back, hard enough that he knew there would be bloody welts there later, and he returned the favour by sinking his teeth down on the meaty part of her shoulder, biting down until he could taste blood and she was gasping under him. When she snarled again for him to fuck her harder he obliged, pistoning his hips against hers, ramming into her with such force that he knew they would both be black and blue come morning, and still she urged him on. She was relentless and needy in a way he had never experienced before and it drove him mad with desire and urgency. He kissed her and she bit his lip, catching his lower lip between her teeth and tugging, her hands twining through his hair and pulling his face down to hers. He felt her nails digging into his scalp, her fingers twisting at his hair. Their sweat-slicked bodies ground together. He cupped her breasts in his hands, making her gasp, and then she brought her hands up to wrap around his wrists. For a moment he thought she was going to try flipping him over so she could get on top and ride him, but then she was tugging his hands upwards and guiding them around her throat.

For a brief moment Theron flashed back to when Samar had forced him to choke her, and he knew his panic must have shown on his face because Miranza’s hands were soft on his own and her voice was filled with gentle encouragement. He could see the marks her fingernails had left on the backs of his hands and up his arms from when he had attacked her during his blackout, and _stars,_ this was _crazy._

Theron wrapped his hands around Miranza’s throat, his thumbs pressing down lightly over her windpipe. The noises she made were filthy, pure sex, and her eyes on his were trusting and open. He kept his grip loose but leaned his weight down on his elbows, pushing her down into the mattress, and he knew his weight had to be crushing her but she was writhing under him and making the most exquisitely wanton noises. When he squeezed, ever so slightly, just barely choking off her air Miranza bucked upwards and he felt it the moment she tumbled over the edge, her orgasm enough to send him falling after her. His world exploded into whiteness and ecstasy and pure, unbridled _release_ and Miranza was hot and wet and shuddering around him, under him.

He toppled to the bed beside her, his heart thundering in his chest, and she curled up against him, slinging one leg over his hip.

“I love you so fucking much,” he whispered, drawing her in close.

“I know,” she replied, sounding blissful and content. She kissed him and pillowed her head on his chest, and together they fell asleep.

They both awakened again in the middle of the night and spent some more time languidly making love, this time far more gentle with each other than they’d been earlier. When they finished Miranza disappeared into the ‘fresher for a few minutes, returning with the medkit, and they took the time to doctor each other up. They were both covered in cuts and bruises; Miranza’s neck was badly bruised, and Theron’s hand was beginning to swell. After liberal applications of kolto and wrapping Theron’s hand with an icepack the two of them took some myocaine tablets and guzzled their body weight in water before curling up together for more rest.

They didn’t talk about what had happened. They both knew they needed to talk, but, having re-established a fragile sort of equilibrium, they were reluctant to disturb the peace between them by touching on any of their various issues. The problems between them could wait until morning, or until they had Vector with them to help mediate, because Vector deserved to know what was going on as much as Theron had; in the meantime, they both needed sleep.

When Theron woke up the next morning his entire body felt like one dull ache but he was more well-rested than he’d been in weeks. He managed to stagger into the ‘fresher for a much-needed piss and spent a few minutes admiring the ‘war wounds’ he’d acquired the night before. He had an impressive set of hickeys on his neck (that he had no memory of Miranza giving him) and his right hand was stiff and swollen, but the kolto and myocaine had done their jobs and overall he felt … pretty good, actually.

Theron wasn’t so naïve as to think that a couple of bouts of good (really, _really_ good) fucking could wipe away the taint Samar had left on him, but there had been something immensely cathartic about the way he and Miranza had thrown themselves at each other the night before. He wasn’t necessarily sure that he wanted to go that hardcore with her again – in particular the memory of choking her gave him some conflicted and confusing emotions – but he had the sense that Miranza had been as desperate to rid herself of the unpleasant memories of their captivity as he had been. It had been years since Samar’s death, but Amrielle’s messages and the mistrust she had engendered in them had stirred it all up again, and Theron no longer had access to his therapist on Coruscant or the medications she had prescribed him. There was only so much alcohol could do to solve his problems – and he knew it wasn’t really a solution, just another stop-gap measure that caused problems all on its own. Sex, though – particularly sex with the two people he loved – maybe that could fix him.

He and Miranza needed to talk to someone, though – if nothing else, the bullshit with Amrielle was proof positive of that. He suspected Vector could likewise benefit from some therapy, and he wondered if it might be possible to get a group discount somewhere. He also wondered if the galaxy wouldn’t mind slowing down for just a little while so that the three of them could get their shit sorted out.

Laughing at his own messed up thoughts Theron drifted out of the ‘fresher and back into the main room. Miranza was awake, hair tousled, clutching what Theron suspected was actually his shirt to her otherwise naked chest as she stared bleary-eyed at Barrazhat’s image on the holocomm. Theron hadn’t heard the comm chirp, but it looked like Miranza and the Mandalorian had been talking for a few minutes. Miranza looked somewhat frazzled.

“What’s going on?” he asked. Team Mando wasn’t due to check in for another day; they were all expected to meet up with Vector on Alderaan.

Miranza opened her mouth, but it was Barrazhat – no doubt having heard Theron’s question – who answered.

_“We’ve got a problem, Nexu One. We had a holo from a girl on Alderaan, called herself Flit. She says the Imps have Nexu Three – and they’re not letting him leave.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration for this chapter is the song "Breathe Me" by Sia. (In case you can't tell I'm a huge fan of her work, but this song in particular makes me think of how very fucked up Theron and Miranza are right now.)
> 
> PSA: Rough sex is all fine and dandy, but for the love of monkeys talk about your boundaries and limits beforehand, don't just jump into the middle of things - especially when you and/or your partner are this messed up. And _especially_ do not choke your partner until/unless you know how to do it safely. At no point should my characters or my writing be taken as guidance.


	20. Interlude: Rattataki Roulette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions are asked. Answers are given.
> 
> (A very short chapter from a different POV.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for POV misogyny, incredibly ugly language and rape-apologia from a piece of shit character

_**Jiguuna, Nal Hutta, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Targo opened his eyes and immediately began choking on the filthy rag stuffed in his mouth. It was almost impossible to breathe through his broken nose and he tried to grab at the gag to pull it away, only to discover his hands were bound. In fact, a sturdy length of durasteel chain was wrapped firmly around his entire torso, securing him to a hard wooden chair. The Weequay’s eyes widened as panic began to set in, strengthened by the vague memory of what he had walked in on moments before being knocked unconscious.

He and Darquesis had been paying an arm and a leg for the medical clinic on Jiguuna, making the hard call to owe a heaping ton of credits in Hutt Space to patch themselves up as well as to secure a kolto tank for Ennitt. Targo had been of the opinion that Ennitt could be left to go hang – the human’s face was pretty much pulp, he’d be lucky if he ever ate solid food again, and the doctor had warned there might be permanent brain damage (and Ennitt had never been the sharpest claw on the manka to begin with) – but Darquesis had been fond of the dumb bastard and was willing to make some extra scratch gambling at the cantina to pay for it. Darquesis had got off lucky with a few blows to the head, but Targo was still walking funny some five days later.

That little fucker – the one with the fancy implants and the stupid hat – must’ve had cybernetic knees. Targo had taken a few hits to the stones in his time, but nothing so hard as what that shithead on Gebroila had done to him.

_Asshole,_ Targo thought, using his anger to try and bypass his growing sense of panic.

He had gone to the med centre to beg for more pain pills – he could’ve picked up seven different kinds of spice at the cantina but Darquesis had all their credits – only to find the place dark and seemingly deserted. The kolto tank that was costing them their retirement funds was smashed all to hell and Ennitt lay in a pool of watered-down kolto and his own blood, his throat slashed from ear to ear. Targo had had all of five seconds to take in the scenery before someone had struck him over the head, and that was all she wrote.

Now he was tied up and gagged, and fuck if his ‘nads weren’t still killing him and now he had a rag crammed in his mouth and it tasted like ass. Ennitt was dead (fuck him, but that was a kriffing waste of credits right there), Darquesis was who the fuck knew where, and Targo was staring into the pale-grey eyes of Kaliyo _fucking_ Djannis. Behind her loomed a tall human man Targo had never seen before in his life; the man grunted and nudged Kaliyo’s shoulder when he saw that Targo was awake.

Kaliyo smiled, a slow, nasty smile that promised all sorts of evil, and picked at her fingernails with a very sharp-looking knife.

“Hello, Targo,” Kaliyo said, sounding friendly. She pushed herself off the crate of medical supplies and stalked towards him, her hips swinging in what might have been an enticing manner if she wasn’t so kriffing terrifying. She yanked the filthy rag out of Targo’s mouth and tossed it on the floor. “Long time, no see.”

The Weequay tried to straighten in his seat, aiming to appear unconcerned. The chains that bound him made it difficult for him to get much height, but at least he could lift his head up and meet Kaliyo’s eyes.

“Hey, babe,” he said, striving for nonchalance (or at least trying to sound like he wasn’t about to shit his pants). He jerked his chin towards the human male, whose scarred face and cybernetic right eye gave him a rather intimidating appearance (the fact that he was roughly the same size and build as Targo – which was to say, ginormous – wasn’t helping matters). “Who’s your friend? I’m down for the whips and chains, but if your pal wants to watch he’s gonna have to buy me dinner first.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Kaliyo said, running the tip of the knife under her thumbnail. “Worry about me. You’ve been a bad, bad boy, Targo.”

Targo thought about trying to bluff Kaliyo and feign ignorance, but it’d been about ten years since he’d last spoken to her – save for two weeks ago, when he’d contacted her about some cheap detonite he and his boys had come across. While there was certainly a lengthy list of crimes Kaliyo could lay at Targo’s feet, it was a safe bet the only one she gave a shit about was the one that had landed him and his team in medical.

“Look, Kaliyo, babe, we weren’t gonna cross you,” he said earnestly, willing her to believe him. “We planned on cutting you in on the profit, trust me. We weren’t gonna screw you over.”

“Yeah, but you _did_ screw me over, Targo.” Kaliyo tapped the blade against his cheek. “You hurt my friend.”

“Hurt …?” Targo blinked, swallowing his outrage even as it helped him mask his fear. “Did you see what that asshole did to Ennitt? And me – ‘Liyo, look at me, my nose is all busted up, my fuckin’ dick feels like a bantha stomped on it –”

“Some of us might view all of that as just deserts,” said the man behind Kaliyo. He folded his arms across his broad chest, his single blue eye staring unblinkingly at Targo. “Kaliyo’s contact said you and your friends tried to rape a woman?”

“Rape her?” Targo scoffed. If he could’ve shrugged he would have done so. “Fuck no, that bitch was rarin’ to go.” He found the man’s scrutiny disconcerting, and his eyes darted towards Kaliyo, knowing _she_ would understand, of all people. She’d spent time with Intelligence types, she knew what they were like, always saying one thing and meaning something else, when what they really wanted was just a good deep-dicking. Spies like that blonde bitch, they were always begging for it, you just sometimes had to give them a little excuse to say yes first. “She was down to party before her boyfriend showed up.”

Kaliyo’s face twisted, the tattoos at the corners of her eyes pulling together. Her hand flashed and Targo felt a sudden sting across his face, and then something warm and wet began to trickle from the fresh cut along his cheekbone.

“She wouldn’t have touched you with a ten-foot pole and someone else’s vagina,” Kaliyo hissed, wiping her bloodied knife down the front of Targo’s shirt. She drew in a few deep breaths, earning herself a look of concern from her companion, and then seemed to get herself back under control. “What was your game plan there, Targo? Fuck her nine ways to Primeday and then dump her in a ditch somewhere?”

“Fuck no!” Targo said again, shaking his head rapidly. “I mean, yeah, we were gonna fuck her – she wanted it, ‘Liyo, trust me, you shoulda seen her –” At Kaliyo’s upraised hand he shut his mouth with a click of his teeth, then took a new tack. “No, no, like I said, we weren’t gonna screw you over. We were gonna cut you in. That bitch had five bounties on her! _Five,_ ‘Liyo! We were gonna auction her off, sell her to the highest bidder. We woulda been rich!”

“Five bounties?” Kaliyo’s companion said incredulously. “Your friend sounds popular, Kaliyo.”

Kaliyo shrugged. “Agent always had a way with people.” Her eyes narrowed, and she jabbed the tip of her knife at Targo’s chest, not quite hard enough to poke through the fabric of his shirt. “Who were the bounties for? Got any names?”

Targo racked his brain, trying to remember. Darquesis had been the details guy; the Devaronian had pulled the bounties off the HoloNet when he recognized Kaliyo’s contact. But now that Targo was getting the sense his life was on the line here, he thought it would be good if he could provide Kaliyo with all the information. She might still go after Darquesis – kriff, Targo was pretty certain she was the one who’d smashed Ennitt’s tank and opened his throat up – but maybe if he played ball they could still be friends after this was over. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t sold her friends out from time to time, right?

“One of them was anonymous,” he said, and when Kaliyo frowned and moved in with the knife he tried to pull away from her, hissing, “Wait, wait! Yeah, one was anonymous, but it was put through some big private corporation off of Glee Anselm.” Kaliyo made a ‘go on’ motion with her knife. “Another was from here on Hutta, from Fa’athra. Some rich brat on Alderaan … Cortosis? Cordon?”

“Cortess,” Kaliyo hissed, rolling her eyes. She turned to look at her companion, an expression of disgust on her face. “I told her she should’ve killed Fa’athra and that little Cortess shithead when they came after her. Bugboy made her go soft.”

“Bugboy?” the man repeated, looking confused. Kaliyo waved him off, and motioned again for Targo to continue.

“And the other two?” Kaliyo said, pale brow arching.

Targo thought hard. He’d done well to remember the first three. He brightened. “Some crazy Sith bitch on Dromund Kaas. Torrid? Horrid?”

“Zhorrid,” Kaliyo corrected, baring her teeth. “Huh, I thought she was dead. And the fifth?”

Targo smiled smugly. As far as he was concerned the other four contracts were small change compared to the fifth. “Republic Military, straight out of Coruscant.”

He had expected a major reaction from Kaliyo, but the Rattataki woman simply nodded, looking unimpressed – and unsurprised. Targo was disappointed by her response, but Kaliyo Djannis had always been a liar; maybe she was just hiding how impressed she was, not wanting to give him any credit. That would be so like her.

“So your plan was to capture the woman and then auction her off to these five interested parties, selling her to the highest bidder?” the man asked. He ran the fingers of his left hand over his neatly-trimmed goatee, looking thoughtful, and glanced towards Kaliyo. “I’m not entirely familiar with Republic or Imperial society, but I can’t imagine the Hutts or the Sith would have been terribly thrilled at being outbid by any of the other groups. You’d have been lucky to walk away with your head still attached to your shoulders.” At a nod from Kaliyo he continued, “And by all accounts this woman is a trained professional – what were your plans for holding her captive until the auction?”

Targo hesitated. To be honest, their plans hadn’t gone much beyond “get her” and “keep her drugged and tied up.” Even fucking her hadn’t been a part of the original plan, but the bartender had warned them that the drugs he’d slipped her might make her frisky, and then when the three men had finally met Kaliyo’s contact and seen how hot she was … well, plans were made to be changed, right? Plus Ennitt had always had a bit of a hate-on for Intelligence types, something to do with a bad deal he’d made when he was a kid, and he’d been yammering about wanting a go at her from the moment Kaliyo had mentioned who her contact was. Sure, Ennitt had originally planned on roughing the contact up, but once he saw it was an attractive woman … _“See how smug the bitch is with my cock down her throat”_ had been Ennitt’s take on the situation. It had seemed harmless enough. Targo always made sure his ladies had a good time, after all, and Intelligence types were always down for a little rough trade.

Finally he shrugged as much as the chains would let him, deciding honesty was the best policy here. “If she got too uppity we woulda just shot her in the head. We woulda been down a couple of contracts, but the Hutts and the Cort – Cort _ess_ kid woulda still paid for her, dead or alive. That Sith bitch might’ve still wanted her, too.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as he added, “I heard some Sith can bring the dead back to life, make ‘em do their bidding!”

Kaliyo rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot, Targo.”

Targo was tempted to tell her to go fuck herself, but that seemed a little counterproductive given his current circumstances. Instead, he decided to try to appeal to her professionalism – not to mention her greed, which had always been his favourite attribute of Kaliyo’s. That and her ass. (It sure as fuck wasn’t her smart mouth.)

“Look, ‘Liyo, that bitch is worth a small fortune.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Ennitt’s body, lying amid the shattered wreckage of his kolto tank. “With Ennitt dead, that’s one person out of the deal. We don’t gotta tell Darq anything – fuck, ‘Liyo, I don’t even know where Darquesis is, so screw him anyway, right? – and with you involved we don’t need the bartender. We can just bring your girl back here, slap some stun-cuffs on her, and you and me can split the profits fifty-fifty. Easy, right?”

“Bartender?” Kaliyo’s grey eyes narrowed, and she folded her arms across her chest. “What bartender?”

“Silwo – the little Rodian bartender at the cantina in Gebroila,” Targo replied quickly. Kaliyo nodded slowly, and he continued, “He’s the guy who got us the stuff. Y’know, the Hutt sweet-spice, s’posed to make girls all friendly-like? We figured from what you said, she’d be careful, wouldn’t let us just slip something into her drink or nothin’, so we got Silwo to do it for us. Darq offered him a shot at her ass, but he wanted to be cut in on the auction price instead.”

Kaliyo’s companion made a noise of disgust, an expression of anger twisting his scarred face as he glared at Targo. Kaliyo looked at him and put a restraining hand on his arm, shaking her head.

“Relax, Tayv, it’s not like he’s talking about your daughter or anything.”

The man scowled, turning his disgusted look on Kaliyo. “This … _thing_ … is talking about using your friend as currency. It shouldn’t matter _whose_ daughter she is. This whole conversation is despicable.”

“We were gonna be gentle!” Targo protested, throwing a desperate look in Kaliyo’s direction. “You know me, ‘Liyo, I’m a fun guy – she woulda had fun with me. We woulda treated her nice before the auction. She woulda been beggin’ for us. ‘Sides, auctioning her off – that’s something you woulda thought of, right? I heard about Anspi'shel. If you coulda auctioned her off, you would have, right?”

Kaliyo frowned, lips pressing together in a thin line. It had been a risk bringing up the Twi’lek woman’s name, but Targo had heard the story from Darq, who’d heard it from a friend of Anspi’s, and honestly, if Kaliyo had had more than one buyer for Anspi’shel he felt certain she would have tried to set up the same kind of deal he and his boys had planned for her little spy friend. It wasn’t anything personal, and like he’d said, he had been planning to give Kaliyo a cut of the profits once the auction had gone through. He wasn’t so stupid as to think he could screw the Rattataki over. He was surprised by Kaliyo’s reaction, though; he wouldn’t have thought she’d have cared about the agent. It’s not like she wanted to be involved with Sith Intelligence, right? He would’ve thought she would have thanked him for getting rid of the bitch for her – and for making a profit out of it, at that!

“Look, ‘Liyo, no hard feelings, okay? Times’re tough since Zakuul started all the blockades – a man’s gotta make ends meet somehow, right? We saw your … your friend … and we got greedy. We didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Kaliyo rolled her eyes again and folded her arms across her chest. “The five contracts – do you have details? Where can I track down these people? How much are they offering?”

Once again Targo was left grasping for details and cursing the fact that Darquesis had handled all their information-gathering. It sounded like Kaliyo might be interested in going after the bounties herself – it would be just like her to cut him out of the deal and hand over her spy friend herself, but he’d be okay with being screwed over like that if it meant she let him live and didn’t decide to hack his nuts off for going after her friend. But he couldn’t remember everything Darquesis had told them; to be fair, he had a tendency to tune out a little whenever the Devaronian opened his mouth, because in all honesty the man tended to ramble.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, heaving a sigh. “Darq’s the one with the details. He found the contracts on the HoloNet.”

“Well, then.” Kaliyo slid her knife into the sheath inside her boot, then straightened and unholstered her blaster pistol, levelling it at Targo’s head. “I guess I don’t need you anymore, do I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is taken from Rihanna's "Russian Roulette," changed to suit Kaliyo Djannis.
> 
> For the curious, Kaliyo's companion is Tayvor Slen, who features in the "Anarchy in Paradise" chapter of KotFE.
> 
> I hope this chapter, for all of Targo's infuriating commentary, provided some satisfaction as Kaliyo meted out some sweet, sweet justice (and got answers!).


	21. Army of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vector enjoys Imperial custody. (Vector does not enjoy Imperial custody.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for torture.

_**Alderaan, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

As diplomatic negotiations went, this was decidedly not one of his better demonstrations. In all fairness to himself, however, Vector suspected that the Empire had entered into the negotiations in bad faith, whereas he had only been trying to ensure that the Killiks – for whom he felt himself personally responsible – did not get the short end of the stick. Never in his wildest dreams would Vector have imagined that the Sith Empire would so easily and so callously throw away their alliance with the Killiks, not after all the time and effort that had gone into establishing the alliance in the first place.

Negotiations had begun well, Vector thought. The Queen of the Oroboro Nest – Vector’s home hive, the one to which he had been Joined years ago when he first became an emissary to the Killiks on Alderaan – had summoned him, asking for his skills as a diplomat and mediator to help handle the Empire’s request for Killik assistance. The Nest had other negotiators, of course; while Vector was their Dawn Herald, his frequent and lengthy absences form Alderaan and the ongoing relationship between the Killiks and the Empire meant that there was always a need for an envoy to represent Killik interests in his stead. The Queen had felt that in this particular instance someone with a bit more autonomy than the average Joiner would be warranted, and thus it fell to Vector to return to the Nest and provide his services. It ought to have been relatively simple and straightforward, with Vector serving as liaison and negotiating the use of Killik soldiers in the renewed aggressions with the Republic and, somewhat more stealthily, in the secret war against the Eternal Empire.

What had begun peacefully over tea and scones in the estate of a House Thul representative had ended, rather abruptly, with Vector and his two Killik bodyguards being taken prisoner. Negotiations had broken down over five days when it became obvious that the Killiks had no interest in involving themselves in either of the Empire’s wars – and equally obvious that the Imperial delegates had no interest in taking no for an answer.

It was clear to Vector that the Imperial representatives had little comprehension of how Killik society worked. Perhaps it was due to the fallacy of typical Imperial human-centric chauvinism, the assumption that humans were the superior species and therefore any humans attached to the Killik hives must somehow be in positions of power and strength, but the end result was that the diplomats assigned to work with the Alderaan Killiks automatically assumed that the Joiners were the ones in charge, and that Vector, being the Dawn Herald, must be some sort of king or ruler. Consequently, when Vector was taken into custody it was with the assumption that he could be coerced into ordering the Killiks to participate in the Empire’s wars.

As if he had that sort of power.

Vector’s first few days in custody had been relatively pleasant, aside from the minor inconvenience of being a prisoner. He’d remained at the Thul estate and been given his own suite of luxuriously-appointed rooms, and while he and his bodyguards had been under constant surveillance, he had been treated as though he were a high-ranking Alderaanian nobleman (a state he was quite familiar with, having spent a considerable amount of time on Alderaan prior to meeting the Imperial agent who eventually became his wife). He’d been invited to attend fancy dinner parties (some in his honour, which amused him to no end), he’d sat with other diplomats and nobles, and the overall impression he was given was that his Imperial captors intended to persuade him (and consequently the Killiks as a whole) to change his mind. It was all quite cordial, for the most part. He was permitted to maintain contact with the Oroboro Nest – ostensibly so that he could convince them to see things the Imperial way – and was allowed Killik visitors.

After three days in custody, when it had become apparent that Vector was not acting in Imperial interests (or in other words, that he wasn’t doing precisely as he was told and ordering the Killiks to join the Imperial fighting forces), his bodyguards had been murdered and he was whisked away from the Thul estate under the cover of night. He didn’t know what the Oroboro Nest had been told about his disappearance, although he knew they would have been able to sense his bodyguards’ deaths and would know that he was in some distress himself. Vector had traded his luxurious suites for a windowless five foot by five foot cell, but initially his situation had not drastically worsened. Indeed, initially he was still treated with deference: cordial apologies for the downgrade in accommodations and less sincere apologies for the deaths of his bodyguards, as if all of this was a simple misunderstanding that would be corrected posthaste.

Midway through day three he was ordered to strip out of his emissary’s robes and given a threadbare pair of trousers to wear instead. His guards watched him change, which Vector mostly just found amusing; if they thought to humiliate him, they clearly didn’t understood Killik or Joiner psychology. His cell was cold and damp, however, and his new clothes did nothing to keep him warm. At the end of the day he was given a plate with mouldy bread and a cup of rank-smelling water; he ate around the mould but drank all of the water, trusting in his Joiner enhancements to stave off food-poisoning. That night, shortly after he had managed to settle into a restless sleep, he had his first visitors: two large men in Imperial uniform who came into his cell and spent a few minutes softening him up with their fists while two more men looked on, their hands resting idly on the triggers of their blaster rifles as if to caution Vector against acting out. He was confident he could take on the two in his cell, but he didn’t fancy his odds against the rifles so he opted for fighting defensively which at least had the benefit of reducing the amount of damage he took. Once they were gone he sat cross-legged on the floor and entered a meditative state that saw him through the rest of the night.

After that Vector’s sense of time began to blur, which was far more concerning to him that the physical discomfort and attempts at humiliation. He could handle being cold or taking a beating or eating rotten food or being forced to relieve himself in the corner of his (tiny, _tiny_ cell), but what he could not handle was his inability to gauge the passage of time. As a Joiner – as the _Dawn Herald_ – it was untenable to be trapped in a windowless cell, unable to see the sun or the stars, his meal times and visitations and sleep cycle staggered so as to thoroughly disrupt his circadian rhythm. It was maddening, and cut off from the rest of his Nest as he was there was nothing he could do about it.

At some point the food and water stopped coming. Vector couldn’t tell if it was four days into his captivity or four weeks. He had greater reserves to draw on than the average human, but the lack of nourishment and hydration was worrying. In the back of his mind he was remembering his training and the rule of threes: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. Those numbers were relative, of course; some survived on less, some required more. He suspected he fell into the former category, thanks to his Joiner nature, but he didn’t know how much less he could take.

Vector was periodically visited by a human man in a starched and pressed Imperial uniform with more rank plaques and code cylinders than his previous ‘guests.’ The man was tall and thin, almost cadaverously so, with thinning white hair and piercing blue eyes. He put Vector in mind of Miranza’s former handler, the man known first as Keeper, then as the Minister of Intelligence, but this man was both taller and thinner, and had a high, nasal voice with an affected Kaasian accent that suggested elocution lessons rather than immersion. The man did not introduce himself, but judging from the rank plaques on the front placard of his jacket he was a major. Vector suspected Theron could come up with a significant number of amusing nicknames from that particular play on words.

The man – Major – was coldly and distantly polite. He did not require information from Vector. He was not interested in befriending his captive. The only thing he wanted was for Vector to order the Killiks to agree to Imperial conscription, and he was not interested in hearing Vector’s explanation that he simply did not have that power, nor was he at all inclined to receive an education in how Killik society functioned, although Vector was more than willing to grant such a lesson. He seemed to take Vector’s demurrals as obstinacy, as though Vector was refusing to assist him to be difficult or because he was disloyal to the Empire, rather than for what it actually was: Vector had no more power to command the Killiks to serve than he had to cause the sun to rise or the rivers to flow downhill. When Vector continued to try and enlighten the Major as to the error of his ways and thinking, the Major called in his two liveried thugs, who then proceeded to attempt to change Vector’s mind through the application of sheer force.

Gradually the scope and purpose of the Major’s line of questioning changed, shifting away from Vector’s supposed inability to control the Killiks to the more specific details of the large-scale Killik operations, and as the Major’s focus changed, so to did his methods. Vector was moved out of his tiny cell and into a much larger room, an open space that appeared to serve as a weapons depot judging by the Aurebesh written on the Imperial-marked crates that surrounded him. He was taken to the centre of a space emptied of supplies and forced to crouch on the balls of his feet, his arms stretched out behind his back at an uncomfortable angle. His wrists and ankles were bound by heavy chains and manacles, and the resulting position put considerable strain on his back, his shoulders and his legs. It also left his head and torso completely exposed and vulnerable, which the Major and his two thugs proceeded to take full advantage of. Every question he failed or refused to answer resulted in a harsh slap to the face or stomach, or the quick lash of a riding crop across his back. Whenever the Major and his assistants took their leave of him, Vector was left bound in this awkward position, the chains far too short to allow him to fall to the floor or relieve his contorted shoulders.

The scope of the Major’s questioning confused Vector. He knew that pain, exhaustion and hunger were addling his wits, but he couldn’t understand how the Major could possibly think that Vector would give up any details on what the Killiks were planning. If Vector wouldn’t order the Killiks to serve the Empire, what in the galaxy made the man think he would betray their secrets so casually and easily? Not that Vector knew any of the Killiks’ plans; not that he suspected there even _were_ plans. To the best of his knowledge the only thing the Killiks wanted was to live in peace on Alderaan, but such an answer was certainly not what the Major wanted to hear. In the Major’s mind, the Killiks were _up to something_ and Vector Hyllus, as their emissary (the Major didn’t understand what a ‘Dawn Herald’ was and didn’t care to learn), had to be in on it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

When the Major and his liveried thugs departed again Vector slumped forward as much as the chains would allow, dropping his head down to his chest. It put unbearable pressure on his shoulders and back, but gave a brief respite to his feet and legs, which were cramped from being forced to remain in his huddled position. His neck ached from the effort of holding his head up, but he refused to stare down at the ground while the Major was questioning him; it was bad enough that he couldn’t see them when they moved behind him, he wasn’t about to allow himself not to raise his head to watch them when they were in front. Somewhere during this latest bout of interrogation he had begun to lose track of his surroundings, and this worried him considerably. The interrogation sessions were beginning to blur together, and it felt very much as though the Major had been hurling questions at him for days on end, with no break in the questioning or the torture that resulted when Vector failed to answer. There was something horribly wrong with his right hand – he had vague recollections involving a hammer of some sort, and it bothered him that he couldn’t remember much beyond that – and it alternated between throbbing, numbness and just a general overall heat that radiated up his arm to his elbow. Letting himself fall forward put more weight on his arms and shoulders, but it also did something to his circulation, cutting it off somewhat, and it turned the throbbing ache in his hand to a more palatable tingling that he could almost ignore. (He knew it wasn’t a good solution, but Vector had none of those, and anything he could do to alleviate the pain - anything aside from betray the Killiks - he would do.) When he had first been dragged into the weapons depot he had found it extremely cold, but this last little while he was almost unbearably warm although from time to time cool sweat and chills wracked his body. He suspected a fever.

Wherever he was, he was effectively cut off from the Killiks. He had tried to reach them in the early days of his captivity, after he’d been moved to the weapons depot, but wherever the Imperials were holding him it seemed a significant amount of effort had been put into making the building as air-tight as possible, preventing even the smallest fingerling Killik from sneaking in. It made him worry that the Empire had been preparing for this eventual shift in the alliance with the Killiks, that they had been working to find ways to shut them out or keep them contained. Vector worried that he was not the only Joiner trapped on-site, and he let himself focus on that worry, because it was far better than worrying about his own welfare.

There was no doubt in Vector’s mind that Miranza and Theron would be coming for him. When he had first been taken into custody and had been permitted to remain in contact with the Oroboro Nest he had made sure to send word to his team about his predicament. (Another thing that worried him: when Flit attempted to contact the _Mercurial,_ Miranza and Theron had not been there, and the young Joiner had been forced to get word to Barrazhat and Rekka instead. Miranza should have met with Kaliyo’s contacts on Hutta long before now, and she and Theron should have been en route to Alderaan to meet up with the two Mandalorians.) They would be coming for him, but he didn’t know how they would find him. He didn’t think he had left Alderaan, but he couldn’t swear to it. For all he knew he’d been taken back to Dromund Kaas for questioning, and _that_ was why the Killiks were having a hard time reaching him.

Vector was tired and in pain, but he was not yet despairing. He had faith in his partners.

When he could no longer take the pain in his shoulders Vector pushed up on the balls of his feet, letting his legs and feet take the bulk of his weight again. His hand began to throb once more, a hot, dull ache that left him feeling nauseated and dizzy, and a headache was forming behind his eyes that he suspected had as much to do with how incredibly thirsty he felt as with anything else. He would have happily downed entire gallons of that rank, foul water he’d been given earlier, if only he could quench his thirst. The thought of crisp, cold water – or better yet, rich, sweet-tasting membrosia from the Nest – made him want to weep. He no longer felt hungry; his stomach was a tight, twisted knot.

Vector found he no longer had the focus for meditation. Once he would have said he could have meditated under any circumstances, but now he found that this simply wasn’t true. When he closed his eyes he saw only darkness, and he found it impossible to summon up the mental image of the Oroboro Nest, the caves and the honeycombs that had sheltered him for years before he’d joined up with his Imperial agent and her crew. He tried thinking instead of Miranza and Theron, tried to conjure up their beloved faces, but his mind was blank and dull. When meditation failed him he tried humming. It made his throat ache, but the sound – low and deep and persistent – was soothing. Killiks hummed to their young and their injured. Killik Joiners, while not quite capable of the same degree of sub-vocalization, could still make roughly equivalent sounds with their less elegant vocal cords. The humming was tuneless and barely audible, but Vector could feel it, a deep vibrating that echoed in his bones, and it was calming to him.

Footsteps on the cold duracrete ground caught his attention, and he let the humming die off, not wanting his captors to try and take that away from him as they had everything else. Although it made his neck ache he forced himself to lift his head again, staring through bleary eyes as the Major walked towards him. In one hand he held the riding crop – Vector had seen such things used in the process of training young thrantas, but the Major much preferred to use it on Vector’s shoulders and back – and in the other a bottle of water. Vector found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the bottle.

“I have a simple question for you, Master Hyllus,” the Major said, running the tip of the crop over Vector’s cheek. “Answer it for me, and you can have a drink. I’m sure you must be thirsty by now?”

Vector made no sound although he was certain his inability to look away from the proffered bottle was answer enough. He tried to look up at the Major’s face but couldn’t raise his head enough.

“Tell me the number of Killiks on Alderaan,” the Major ordered. He tucked the crop into his uniform belt and used his now-free hand to unscrew the cap on the bottle. He held it out to Vector, almost brushing the mouth of the bottle over Vector’s lips, and Vector fought the urge to wrap his mouth around it and chug. “That’s it, Master Hyllus. That’s all I want to know.”

_The number of Killiks on Alderaan._ Vector would have chuckled if he’d had the energy to do so. It was an impossible question to answer. Did the Major want to know about every single Killik, or just the ones the Empire could use in their wars against the Republic and the Eternal Empire? There were hundreds of thousands of fledglings, but those could scarce be counted in a fight. Many of them wouldn’t survive to adulthood. There were drones who were workers only, who did not have the ability to take up arms; there were others who existed solely to service the queens. Or did the Major mean the Killik Joiners, and of those, did he mean the ones who were human, or did he want Vector to include all the alien species who had been absorbed into the Nest? There was, Vector sensed, no answer that would please the Major, and none that he could give that wouldn’t constitute a betrayal to his people.

The Major must have read Vector’s refusal on his face, for he quickly set the bottle down and twisted the fingers of his gloved hand through the Joiner’s hair, wrenching his head back in a painful angle. Vector’s breath caught, a hiss of pain escaping through his teeth as the Major crouched down in front of him, his sharp blue eyes boring into Vector’s.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” the Major asked him, affecting a sympathetic tone that would have fallen flat regardless of the way his fingers tightened in Vector’s hair. “Your people aren’t coming for you. If they’d wanted to rescue you they would have done so by now, but there haven’t even been any attempts. You’re on your own here, Master Hyllus. Surely you don’t owe them any further loyalties.”

Vector pressed his lips together in a firm line, biting back another pained sound as the Major gave his head a vicious yank. When the Major released his grip on his hair Vector’s head dropped back down to his chest and his breath came in short, hard pants. He couldn’t hold his own head up no matter how much he wanted to.

“Start on his other hand,” the Major said, voice as calm and bland as if he was ordering an appetizer at a restaurant.

Vector felt movement behind him and cursed himself for failing to notice either of the Major’s men coming so close to him. One of them grabbed his left hand and Vector tensed, trying desperately to turn his head enough to be able to see behind him. There was a short, sharp twist and Vector couldn’t hold back the anguished cry when his pinky finger was snapped like a dry twig. Tears he couldn’t afford to shed gathered at the corner of his eyes and he bit down on his lower lip, tasting blood as he tried to keep himself from screaming again. The thug gave another hard wrench and Vector’s vision swam, his world fading out.

When Vector’s vision cleared there was a dead man lying at his feet. It took his addled brain a few seconds to realize he was staring at one of the Major’s thugs, a series of blaster burns riddling his Imperial armour; the man’s eyes gazed up at the ceiling, unblinking and already beginning to glaze over. Confused by this sudden turn of events Vector tried to lift his head to see what was going on, but his hair fell in his eyes, plastered to his face by sweat and grime, and all he could do was listen and wonder.

Vector had been in combat often enough to recognize it when he heard it, and even if he couldn’t see what was happening he was able to get a vague idea from the noises around him. He heard the Major issuing orders – screaming orders, really, his nasal voice high and frantic – and the sounds of blaster fire. At first he thought he was being rescued, but then he caught a brief glimpse of the familiar grey uniforms of House Organa, and while he felt a brief twinge of relief at the realization that he must still be on Alderaan he was confused as to what the Republic-aligned noble house was doing in an Imperial weapons depot.

“I knew it!” the Major was snarling; from the sound of things Vector thought he was moving away, towards where Vector thought the exit might be. “I _knew_ the Killiks were up to something! You’ve switched sides! You’ve gone to the Republic! _Traitor! Tra –”_

The Major’s voice cut off abruptly, his ranting ending with a wet choking sound. Vector heard a dull thud, and out of the corner of his eye – just barely within range of his vision – he saw the Major’s body hit the ground, his blaster pistol limply from his hands, his head twisted at a decidedly awkward and unhealthy angle. An exceptionally large man stood over him, wearing the House Organa livery, his face hidden behind a full helmet. There was something familiar about the way he held himself, but Vector was too confused to sort it out. It took him a few seconds to realize that the sounds of fighting had ended, and he tensed up as he sensed motion behind him again.

The chains binding his wrists and ankles gave way, and Vector would have fallen to the ground were it not for the sudden presence of another grey-liveried form at his side. The Organa soldier slid an arm around his waist, taking the full brunt of his weight with a muted grunt. Vector bit down on an agonized cry as his arms and shoulders – contorted for so long by the chains pulling against them – relaxed. He tried to lift his hand to grab at the person beside him but his muscles wouldn’t obey him. His back and shoulders felt as though they were on fire, and his hand - _both_ his hands were a throbbing mess.

“Careful,” a man’s voice – twisted through the modulator on his helmet, yet once again strangely familiar, with an upper-class Imperial accent that sounded entirely out of place from within the Organa armour – intoned. “Watch his hands. Help him down, we need to –”

“We don’t have time,” another voice interrupted. It was a woman’s voice, again familiar, again distorted by her helmet. Her voice came from several feet away. “We need to get out of here.”

Another figure moved in close, coming up on Vector’s other side. Like the others, this person wore the livery of House Organa; unlike the others, they were reaching up to remove their helmet, and as flattened blonde curls came tumbling free Vector felt his knees give way as he recognized his wife. Miranza’s face was pale and determined, her dark blue eyes flashing with rage as she took in the sight of her battered husband.

“Vector, are there any other Killiks here?” she asked, as the figure on his other side tightened the arm around Vector’s waist. Although the other person hadn’t removed their helmet Vector recognized the familiar lines and shape of Theron’s body, and the relief that swept over him at the realization he was being rescued was almost enough to make him weep. “Any other Joiners?”

Vector opened his mouth to say that he didn’t know, but all that came out was a strangled groan. Theron cursed under his breath, tightening his hold on Vector again, and Vector let his head loll against the other man’s shoulder, the sharp line where the pieces of armour came together digging into his cheek. Miranza kissed him, quick and light, careful not to press down on the cuts he’d left in his lips from trying to hold in his screams. Her gloved hand came up to cup his cheek briefly, then she was pulling away, standing and straightening, and he saw her put the helmet back on.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said in a decisive tone. She turned towards the large man – Barrazhat, Vector guessed, based on his sheer size and build – and jerked her head in the direction of the exit. “Get him out of here. I’ll meet up with you shortly.”

“Where are you going?” the other woman asked. _Rekka._ Vector was relieved to put a name to the voice, and now that he knew to listen for it he could hear the faint notes of her Mandalorian accent.

Miranza cocked her head, hands dropped to the blaster pistols at her belt. “To finish this.”

Barrazhat moved in to Vector’s other side, but Theron waved him off with a snarled “I got this” as he helped Vector to stand. Miranza disappeared from Vector’s line of sight; he wanted to follow her, with his eyes at least if not with his full body, but it was all he could do to remain standing, and he held on to Theron’s waist for dear life. He tried to close his hand around Theron’s hip but the sudden sharp pain in his fingers reminded him of what had just been done to him, and this time he couldn’t hold back the anguished sob that spilled forth from his lips.

His world was going grey again. He tried to shake his head, tried to focus, but everything seemed to be closing in on him, his vision tunnelling, the only sound he could hear the rushing of his blood in his ears.

“He’s going down!” Barrazhat’s voice, followed by more cursing from Theron. They both sounded terribly far away.

Vector opened his mouth to tell the Pureblood he was fine, perfectly fine, he just needed a minute to catch his breath – and that was the moment the darkness rose up to swallow him whole.

O o O o O

Theron sat in the cargo hold of the _Mercurial,_ staring down at the jacket of the Organa uniform he had stolen, his index finger rubbing over and over again at a spot of dark red blood on one of the sleeves. It was Vector’s blood, but Theron didn’t know which of the man’s many cuts had bled on him. He suspected it had come from one of the open wounds on his back, when Theron had wrapped his arm around Vector’s waist to support him. Before he’d all but collapsed face-first on the ground.

Vector was in the medbay with Miranza and Rekka. Barrazhat was piloting the ship. Theron wanted to be in the medbay but Rekka had calmly and patiently shown him the door because the room wasn’t large enough for them to work without him getting underfoot. He knew Barrazhat well enough to know that his restless energy wouldn’t be welcome while the Pureblood was flying. The cargo hold seemed like a safe enough place for him to hide out while he waited for word on Vector’s condition. He still felt like he was too far away, but he didn’t want to be in the captain’s quarters where their bed was, and he needed more room than the crew quarters, galley or conference room could offer him. He could pace in the cargo hold – he _had been_ pacing for the better part of an hour, and had only just come to a stop when he stubbed his toe on one of the storage crates. He was too distracted to even pace effectively; that was probably a new record for him.

Vector was going to be okay. Theron didn’t need Miranza or Rekka to reassure him of that fact; he had seen Vector’s injuries, and while they were awful, he knew how tough the other man was and knew that between the two women’s assorted skills as medics the Joiner was in excellent hands.

Theron couldn’t get the image of Vector, chained up and kneeling on the floor, out of his head. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the Joiner, dark head bowed, strong arms pulled out behind his back, tattered and stained trousers loose on his hips. The cuts. The bruises. His _hands, stars above and below, Vector’s hands._

Scrubbing one shaking hand over his eyes Theron clutched the stained jacket to his chest and drew in a handful of deep, steadying breaths. He had seen Vector injured before; there was no reason for him to be this upset, especially not when he knew that his lover was expected to make a full recovery. But intellectually Theron realized that the previous times Vector had been hurt, it had been less deliberate than this. Yes, his previous injuries had been the result of direct violence, but cuts and bruises and breaks sustained in a fight were not the same as torture. Theron and Miranza had both been through it before and had come out … perhaps “all right” was too strong for it, but they had both survived and Theron had every reason to believe it would be the same for Vector. It was just difficult to see someone he loved brought so low.

Theron stared down at the jacket, glaring at the smooth leatheris surface. He still felt uncomfortable with Rekka’s plan, even though he’d decided to go along with it. The Killiks who’d provided them with intel had been disinclined to put an end to the Imperial-Killik alliance, despite what had happened to Vector and his two bodyguards, and so their original plan of just invading the compound with an army of Killiks had to be scrapped. Making it look like the attack came from Republic forces just made sense, and it had been easy enough to procure some Organa uniforms. But Theron couldn’t help but feel as though he’d betrayed his own people, that he'd thrown his own people under the speeder.

_Are they even my own people anymore?_ he wondered, brushing his fingertips over the bloodstain. It was slightly sticky to the touch. He didn’t know what to think anymore. He hadn’t officially left the Republic; as far as he was concerned, the work he was doing with Lana and their team was to the benefit of the galaxy as a whole, not one faction over the other. But did he plan to go back to Coruscant once Arcann was dead and the Eternal Empire had been defeated? No, he didn’t think so. It had been too easy to walk away from the SIS, to thumb his nose at Saresh and his father. He had no intentions of leaving Vector and Miranza, either: they were home to him, more so than Coruscant or the SIS or the Jedi Order had ever been.

He didn't know what to make of that.

“Theron?” Rekka’s voice called to him from the doorway, and from her tone he suspected it wasn’t the first time she’d said his name or tried to get his attention.

“Yeah?” Theron stood, tossing the jacket onto one of the crates. If Rekka had left the medbay that meant she and Miranza must be done treating Vector’s injuries, and given that she didn’t look completely shattered – or like she was walking on eggshells around him – that had to mean Vector was doing well.

“Vector’s resting comfortably in the medbay,” Rekka answered, confirming his suspicions. Her dark hair was starting to escape from its ponytail, inky black tendrils sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Her cybernetics – aural implants and a band over one eye – gleamed in the cargo hold lighting, a bright contrast to her dusky skin tone. Her grey eyes were tired but filled with obvious relief and pleasure with a job well done. “Your wife and I were going up to the bridge to talk flight plans with Barrazhat. Did you want to join us?”

Theron considered the question – and its framing. Technically speaking he and Miranza weren’t married. Then again, technically speaking Miranza and Vector weren’t officially married, either: there had been no ceremony, no official sanction, no documentation. Sometimes he still considered Vector to have the more ‘official’ claim to her, as though somehow her relationship with the Joiner was more legitimate because they’d been together first. As if Theron was simply a tagalong. He didn’t voice his thoughts out loud, however, because he knew it was just in his head, that Vector and Miranza didn’t make a distinction between their relationship with each other versus their relationships with him. They were all equal in their eyes. It was a strange concept to grasp, especially for someone for whom relationships of any sort were immediately confusing and foreign.

“No,” he said finally, moving towards the doorway. “I don’t have any suggestions about where we should go.” He realized that sounded slightly petulant, and added, “I trust the three of you to find somewhere safe. I’d rather go sit with Vector for a while, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is.” Rekka smiled at him, tousling his hair with one hand, as if he was her little brother – or her pet. “He was sleeping when I left, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the company.”

Theron nodded and made his way to the medbay. Contrary to Rekka’s statement, Vector was _not_ sleeping when Theron arrived. Instead, the Joiner had pushed himself to a sitting position and was awkwardly attempting to remove the various IV feeds and monitor leads, his movements made clumsy by the fact that the fingers of both hands were splinted and heavily bandaged. Theron had to suck back a string of curses when he caught sight of the various cuts and bruises spread across Vector’s naked torso, and instead he hurried into the medbay and tried to push the Joiner back down onto the bed.

“You’re supposed to be resting, Vector!” he said, when Vector just swatted irritably at him.

“We need to shower,” Vector protested. His voice was very hoarse, little more than a faint whisper, and he managed to sound both irritated and exhausted.

“Cleaning up can wait,” Theron replied. It was difficult to figure out where to put his hands to restrain Vector: there didn’t seem to be a single patch of skin that wasn’t either bruised or cut or raw. “Did you want some more painkillers? A sedative, maybe, to help you sleep?”

“No. Theron.” Vector’s jet-black eyes stared wearily up at Theron, his expression one of abject misery. “ _Please._ We need to shower. We can’t rest like this.” He gestured towards himself with one bandaged hand, grimacing as the motion pulled overly strained and abused muscles. _“Please, Theron.”_

Theron blinked, sudden comprehension dawning. He remembered what it had felt like to be back in the safe house on Rishi after he’d been captured and tortured by the Revanites. After three days of beatings and getting his insides rearranged by interrogation droids it had been a luxury to be able to use the shower behind their hut; he hadn’t even cared that the shower was hardly private or that the water was ice cold, it had been wonderful just to feel clean again. Vector had been held captive for longer, and Force only knew how long they’d kept him huddled over and in chains. He was such a fastidious man, Theron couldn’t even imagine how much it must bother him to be this filthy.

Rekka and Miranza were going to _kill_ him. Theron let out a long sigh, then said, “Yeah, all right.”

Vector was pliant and pliable as Theron turned off the medical monitoring equipment and then detached the IV and leads. He wrapped an arm around the Joiner’s waist and helped him down off the bed, pretending not to notice how heavily Vector leaned on him or the fact that yes, he did smell rather rank, a mixture of blood and sweat and piss. Theron walked Vector out of the medbay and down the hall, forcing himself not to comment on the way Vector’s breaths came in harsh pants or the fact that he was all but trembling from the effort of moving. When they got to the ‘fresher Theron helped Vector to sit down on the toilet, then got the shower running, making sure the water temperature was set to Vector’s comfort level. Once the water was ready Theron stepped back and quickly stripped off his own clothes, earning himself a startled huff from Vector.

“What?” Theron commented acerbically, giving Vector’s bandaged hands a meaningful look. “How were you planning on washing yourself?”

“In truth, we hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Vector replied quietly.

Shaking his head, Theron knelt and helped Vector out of his trousers, discarding the tattered and stained fabric on the floor to be tossed away later. For once there was no innuendo or flirting between them. Theron simply guided Vector into the shower stall, then stepped in behind him, letting him have the full spray of warm water.

Theron let Vector have a few minutes to just enjoy the warm water. It had to feel good on his abused muscles. He surveyed the Joiner with a critical eye, grateful Vector stood with his back to Theron so that he couldn’t see the expression on Theron’s face – because there was no way it was pleasant. Theron was _furious._ If it wasn’t for the fact that he was positive Miranza had already made sure every single Imperial in that compound was dead Theron would have demanded they head back to Alderaan so that he could make sure of it himself. _“Where are you going?” “To finish this.”_ He would have regretted his own decision not to assist her if he hadn’t made the conscious choice to stay with Vector instead. And when Miranza had rejoined them at the _Mercurial_ she had given Theron a single curt nod, and he had known that the job was done.

Miranza was as ruthless as she was beautiful.

Vector sagged against the wall of the shower stall, drawing Theron back to the present. He helped the Joiner remain upright, hooking one arm around his waist while he searched through their assortment of bath products until he found the body wash Vector favoured. Opening the bottle one-handed proved challenging, but Theron was up to the task, and Vector let out a quiet hum of contentment when Theron began lathering his back and shoulders with the woodsy-scented soap. Normally this would be foreplay, but Vector was in no condition for even gentle lovemaking and Theron _certainly_ wasn’t in the mood.

It took some effort to wash Vector’s hair; the Joiner was slightly taller than Theron and it hurt him to hunch over. But Theron could see that he rather desperately wanted his hair washed, so he made it happen, bracing himself with one foot on the shelf full of bath products and the other wedged in the corner, rightly figuring that if he could hang upside-down from a floating advertisement terminal on Nar Shaddaa then he could certainly manage to parkour his way up the side of a shower stall.

Once the shower was over and the last of the filth and grime was washed from Vector’s battered body Theron moved to turn the water off so that he could get Vector out and dried off. Vector blocked him, moving in front of the faucets, and held his arms out to Theron. Swallowing heavily, Theron stepped into the other man’s embrace and wrapped his own arms around the Joiner’s back, careful to avoid putting any weight or pressure on the various tender spots. Vector kissed him lightly on the mouth, then dropped his head down onto Theron’s shoulder. Theron tightened his hold on Vector when he felt the other man begin to shake, soft sobs almost disappearing under the noise of the shower.

“We knew you would come for us,” Vector murmured against Theron’s skin, his lips brushing over his lover’s shoulder and in the curve of his neck.

Theron swallowed back a sob of his own. “Of course we came. We love you. I love you.”

Vector’s shoulders shook and he pressed his face into Theron’s neck. Theron rubbed soothing circles over Vector’s back, taking pains to avoid touching down on any bruises, and whispered nonsense words against the Joiner’s cheek. When at last Vector’s sobs died down Theron helped him from the shower, using the softest, fluffiest towel he could find to dry him off before leading him out of the ‘fresher.

At first Theron intended to take Vector back to the medbay – if anything his bandages would need to be replaced after the shower, and Theron was certain Vector ought to be hooked up to the IVs again, at least – but Vector pulled away and asked to be led to their quarters, the captain’s quarters. Since Theron had no intentions of leaving his side he didn’t see the harm in letting him sleep in his own bed instead of in the medbay hooked up to a bunch of machinery. He could monitor Vector’s condition himself, and if the IVs were that important he knew Rekka or Miranza would find a way to get everything set up in the captain’s quarters instead. Theron nodded, and helped Vector limp towards the captain’s quarters.

Theron spent a few minutes gently combing the tangles from Vector’s hair, then rebandaged his hands and the few cuts that had been deep enough or long enough to require stitches. Vector was already half-drowsing by the time Theron guided him into bed, and he curled in beside the Joiner as he drew the covers up over them.

It was sometime later when Miranza came to bed. Theron had only been dozing lightly, one arm over Vector’s hip, pulling the Joiner in close. Vector had made a few small noises in his sleep, but for the most part seemed to have fallen into a mercifully dreamless and restful slumber. Theron lifted his head to watch Miranza as she stripped down in the darkness and then slid in under the covers. She was careful to avoid jostling the bed; Theron scarcely felt the addition of her weight as she settled in beside Vector.

“We’re going back to Belsavis,” she whispered, fitting herself in on Vector’s other side. Vector didn’t even stir, and she wrapped an arm around his torso, her fingers brushing Theron’s flank. “Lana’s already been contacted. Rekka and Barrazhat will pick up the slack while you and I take care of Vector.”

“And each other,” Theron added, extending his arm over Vector so that he could glide his hand over her hip. Stars knew, they’d been careless enough of each other these past few weeks. That needed to change.

Miranza nodded, planting a light kiss on Vector’s temple. “And each other,” she agreed quietly. “It’s time we let the galaxy take care of itself for a change. We need a break.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Army of Me" is a fantastic song by Björk and makes me want to tear through Imperial compounds, too.


	22. Hey Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short bit of much-needed fluff, courtesy of Felix Iresso and Theron Shan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a prompt request from Tumblr user @velvetsunset: “What’s Felix’s second favourite thing about Belsavis? (I assume the first is his family)”

**_Belsavis, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion_ **

Mornings on Belsavis still had the power to take his breath away, even after all the time he and his family had spent there. There was so much potential to mornings, Felix found: a brand new day where just about anything could happen, where you could choose to leave the previous day’s mistakes behind and make a new start for yourself. He loved early mornings no matter where in the galaxy he was, but Belsavis in particular was a stunningly beautiful planet and waking up each morning beside his gorgeous wife, with the sun’s rays just starting to filter in through the lacy bedroom curtains, was enough to fill his heart with joy.

This particular morning he had woken up in his son’s bed – still with his gorgeous wife beside him, although two adults sharing a toddler-sized bed made for some interesting bodily contortions – with the sun already pouring in. The night before had been a late one, what with getting their guests all set up and comfortable, and it had been well after midnight before he and Ori had staggered to bed. Under different circumstances Felix might have taken advantage of the fact that their kids were staying with a friend, but it wasn’t as though he and Oriana had the cottage to themselves, and lounging in bed all morning wasn’t his style. Felix had gotten up and made breakfast while his wife checked on her patient.

Ori was good at maintaining her cool. Felix didn’t know if that was a Jedi thing or a Mirialan thing or just an Ori thing, but when she’d first begun work on Vector Hyllus’s injuries Felix had seen a brief flash of anger, then sorrow, cross her face and then it was gone, smoothed over by her usual look of professional detachment. It wasn’t until she’d come to bed – Felix and Oriana had given their own master bedroom and its king-sized bed over to their guests, making do with the much smaller bed in the nursery – that she’d fallen apart in Felix’s arms. It wasn’t that the Joiner’s injuries were particularly bad – Vector was already well on the road to recovery and Force knew, both Ori and Felix had seen worse in their time – but the cause of them that upset her. That, and the fact that it clearly wasn’t the first time someone had deliberately caused harm to the man.

_“He’s been whipped, Felix.”_ Oriana had whispered the words in Felix’s ear as he held her, the two of them crowded together on Milo’s bed, her lips brushing his cheek. _“There are old scars on his back. And now, his hands …”_ Vector’s left hand had been healing well, but Oriana had needed to reset the broken bones in his right; she was worried about nerve damage. Vector hadn’t uttered a word of complaint although Felix could still picture the way his face had gone very still. Vector’s wife, Miranza, had apologized for her sloppy treatment of him – Felix gathered that this was the second time Vector’s hand had needed to be reset – but it was clear she’d done the very best she could.

Felix was no stranger to the depths of depravity the Sith Empire could reach. He had a holocron locked away inside his brain thanks to the Sith, and he’d borne witness to countless Imperial victims across the galaxy. Still, it was different to see someone he knew – a friend, if not someone he knew particularly well – who had been tortured. The knowledge that it wasn’t the first time Vector Hyllus had been so abused didn’t make it any easier to bear, even if the man was reasonably stoic about it all. Felix had recognized the hollow eyes and grim expressions on the faces of Vector’s two lovers; those three kids had been through the ringer, no mistake about it.

Theron Shan was not a huge fan of mornings, but a grudging sense of courtesy appeared to be keeping him from grumbling at his host. When he’d sat, lost and staring vacantly at his half-filled mug of caf, Felix had decided the kid needed a break. Ori wanted to try another round of Force-healing on Vector’s hand and the abused muscles of his back, and frankly, Felix didn’t think Theron needed to sit through that again. He also thought Miranza could stand to have a little female-bonding time with Oriana once the healing was done, and so he had bundled the former SIS agent up and taken him out for a walk. The walk had ended with Felix showing Theron his favourite fishing hole, and so it came to pass that the two men were sitting on a large boulder overlooking one of the many small lakes on Belsavis, idly dangling lines into the water on the off-chance they might catch something.

Felix could tell Theron needed to talk, but he was in no particular hurry to rush the kid. He cast his line out into the water and tilted his head up to bask in the early morning sun, an insulated container of caf beside him. The morning had dawned crisp and cool and promised to blossom into a beautiful day, and Felix was content to just sit on his rock and let Theron take his time about things.

“Thank you for letting us stay here – again,” Theron said finally, after the companionable silence had stretched out between them. No master fisherman, the former agent let his line play out, staring out at the water as if the answers to all of life’s mysteries could be found there. Maybe they could, at that: Felix knew he’d thought his way through more than a few problems just by setting up a fishing line and gazing out at the lake.

Felix shrugged and used one hand to unscrew the cap on his caf, taking a small sip. Since they had guests Oriana had broken out the good caf, the stuff Tharan brought them in from Coruscant, and Felix enjoyed the small luxury; it was the icing on the cake that was this beautiful morning, as far as he was concerned. “We’re glad to help. You’ll always be welcome here. Besides,” he added, grinning, “It’s nice to get a break from the sproglets.”

When Miranza had first contacted Oriana and Felix, she had explained the nature of Vector’s injuries and their cause. Milo – who had just celebrated his fifth birthday two weeks ago – was a smart kid and way too observant for his own good. Both Ori and Felix felt that it would be wise for the children to be elsewhere while Oriana treated Vector; Felix didn’t think his son would be able to grasp the concept of torture, but he and his wife put a lot of effort into sheltering their children from the harsh realities of life on Belsavis and frankly neither Milo nor Caia needed to be exposed to the kind of abuse Vector Hyllus had suffered. Vector seemed largely unaffected by his ordeal, but sooner or later he was going to have to process what he’d been through, and Felix would just as soon not have his kids around when it happened. He’d seen the aftereffects of torture before and he figured the Joiner would prefer not to have an audience for his recovery.

A month or so ago Felix and Oriana wouldn’t have had the option of sending their kids away. Qyzen could be trusted with them, of course, but the Trandoshan wasn’t comfortable with lengthy periods of babysitting and the snug cave he lived in was perfectly fine for him but hardly suitable for two small children. Fortunately for them, Zenith had sent an old friend to them, a human woman by the name of Khatera Suul who had been a teacher on Balmorra as well as a member of the resistance; her husband had been killed when Princes Arcann and Thexan attacked the planet. Khatera had been looking for a place to raise her son, and Zenith had suggested Belsavis, and that Oriana would welcome another teacher to help with her plans to provide education to the planet’s prisoners. (Felix got the sense that Zenith and Khatera had been a little more than just friends, but whatever had been between them had ended and they remained on good terms.) Ori and Khatera got on like a house on fire and when Ori and Felix decided to keep Milo and Caia out of the house for a while Khatera was only too glad to take them. Milo had already developed a strong case of hero-worship for Naite, Khatera’s teenage son, which Naite seemed to find moderately amusing.

“Nobody’s gonna come after you here,” Felix continued, and at Theron’s wary glance he raised a hand in a vague warding gesture. “Last time you were here, we had some Republic soldiers come by, asking after a woman who fit your girl Miranza’s description. Ori sent them packing. They don’t wanna piss her off too much – besides being a former Jedi Council member, Ori’s also the person they turn to when their troops need more healing than a kolto tank or a med centre can provide. They need to stay on her good side. Not that she wouldn’t heal ‘em even if they did piss her off, but nobody needs to tell _them_ that.”

There had been other visitors, too: some Jedi had come by while Felix and Qyzen were out running diagnostics on the perimeter-patrol droids. The Jedi was gone by the time Felix returned to the cottage, and when he’d asked Oriana what the visit had been about she had shaken her head and said it was private. Felix had been prepared to drop the matter – Ori didn’t keep secrets without having a damned good reason for it and he trusted his wife’s judgment – but then she had added, almost as an afterthought, _“Absolution. I think she came for absolution”_ and that had been the end of it. Felix wasn’t about to tell Theron that, however; he didn’t have enough details to share with the former SIS agent, and if Oriana didn’t want to talk about the Jedi he wasn’t about to make her.

Theron nodded slowly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He stared out onto the water, but Felix didn’t think the other man was watching his line or even seeing the water itself; since he’d arrived on Belsavis Theron had seemed distracted and worried, and not just because one of his partners was injured (again). Felix wasn’t Force-sensitive but he liked to think he was good at reading people, and what he was reading in Theron’s expressions and body language was a man filled with conflict. If Felix had been in Theron’s place he suspected the internal conflict might have been about being torn between two lovers, because Felix Iresso was a one-woman kind of man, but that didn’t appear to be an issue for Theron or his partners. Felix couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of a three-way relationship but it seemed to be working for Theron, Miranza and Vector, and so long as all three of them were happy and getting their needs met Felix didn’t think it was his place to judge. But that meant that whatever the conflict was, Felix couldn’t sort it out.

“I couldn’t do this,” Theron said, breaking the silence again.

“Do what?” Felix asked, gesturing out at the lake. “Fish? You’re doin’ fine. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t caught anything.”

Theron chuckled, a surprisingly reassuring sound, and his breath puffed out in little clouds in the cool morning air. “Not gonna lie, I’m pretty lousy at this, too, apparently. But no, I meant …” He shrugged uncomfortably. “This. This whole thing you and Master Zarasa have here on Belsavis. The house, the kids, the … the _all_ of it. Especially now, with Zakuul and … everything. And here you are, on a _prison planet_ of all places, and you’re just … making it work.”

“Isn’t that what life is, though?” Felix replied with a shrug of his own. “Just ‘making it work’? Nobody knows what they’re doing – folks who say otherwise are just lyin’, either to themselves or to you. Probably to themselves, mostly. But this? Me and Ori and the sproglets? _This_ is easy. I mean, yeah, Belsavis is a dangerous place, but you can’t really say anywhere in the galaxy is perfectly safe, y’know? We do what we can to keep Milo and Caia safe. We’ve got Qyzen, and the droids, and most of the prisoners around here appreciate what Ori’s doing and so do the Republic officials – at least the ones who can be bothered to care. And honestly, here? Here’s probably safer than anywhere else in the galaxy right now. Zakuul doesn’t give a crap about Belsavis.

“But,” he continued thoughtfully, twining the length of fishing line around one of his fingers, “me and Ori don’t have any enemies, not anymore. And I don’t think that’s the case with you and your partners.”

“No, it’s not.” Theron hunched his shoulders, the toe of his boot stirring ripples in the water. “The Sith Empire will probably be gunning for Vector now, and Miranza’s got … shit, five different bounties out on her head, if our friend’s sources are right.”

“And you?”

“And me.” Theron sighed heavily. “I don’t even know anymore. Things are … complicated.”

Felix let out a rueful laugh. “When are they ever not?” He released the line, then drew back his fishing rod and cast it out further in the water. “So what’re you gonna do about it?”

Theron glanced at him out of the corner of his hazel eyes. “I wish I knew.”

“Well, the three of you are welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” Felix said. “Our place isn’t big but there’s more than enough to go around for folks who need it, and besides, I don’t think Ori’s gonna let your man go anywhere until she’s sure he’s ready for it.”

“She might have to,” Theron replied, “If we’re needed elsewhere, I mean.”

Felix snorted. “Good luck convincing her.” He didn’t think it was his place to share with Theron the horror that had been on Oriana’s face when she’d come to bed after treating Vector’s injuries, but he didn’t think he _needed_ to share, either. Theron and Miranza had been taking care of Vector since rescuing him off Alderaan; they already knew how badly he’d been hurt. And Felix felt confident that Theron and Miranza were already well aware of the psychological toll torture took on someone – he had a sneaking suspicion they’d both experienced more than their fair share of the interrogators’ arts themselves. All three of them had a hunted, haunted air about them, and if he knew his wife Oriana wasn’t going to let them out of her sight until she was satisfied they were well on the road to recovery. Healing didn’t just involve the body, and the Jedi took her job seriously.

“So, this thing you got going with Vector and Miranza, this works for you?” Felix asked after a moment, keeping his tone light and casual, free of judgment.

Theron nodded, grinning, a faint flush colouring his tanned cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Yeah. Yeah, it does, it works. I’m a spaceship-wreck when it comes to relationships, but with them it’s …” He paused, considering, then laughed wryly. “I was gonna say with them it’s _easy,_ but that’s not even remotely true. Especially not lately. But it’s … it’s like we just _fit,_ you know?”

Felix echoed Theron’s nod, remembering how the three of them had looked at each other the last time they’d been his guests on Belsavis. He knew the looks Theron gave Vector and Miranza, the looks they all gave each other: he’d seen the same look on Ori’s face when she smiled at him, and knew he wore it too whenever he watched her. Love took on all shapes and sizes, and while Felix knew he’d never be able to be in the kind of relationship Theron, Miranza and Vector were in, there was no pretending the three of them weren’t head over heels for each other. And it wasn’t just some dumb kid thing, either; for all that Felix saw Theron as being a kid – he was nearly a decade older than the former agent – this wasn’t a hormone-fueled crush. This was a love that had been tempered through fire and trial, the same as his own love for Oriana. These kids had seen each other at their worst, with all their illusions stripped away. He knew what that felt like. He knew _real_ when he saw it.

“You’re lucky to have each other,” Felix said, in the tone of a man who knew lucky, because he had it, too.

“Yeah,” Theron said softly, his eyes on the lake, where something was beginning to tug at his fishing line. “I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hey Brother" is a song by Avicii. I was relieved to discover that Felix Iresso is canonically seven years older than Theron Shan, which suited my needs perfectly for the kind of older brother/younger brother vibe I was aiming for here. (If my research hadn't shown that much of an age difference I was prepared to change canon anyway, because I can do that, so there. *sticks out tongue*) All three members of my OT3 are in need of some support and guidance, and Felix and Oriana worked for me.
> 
> I just want to add how much of a delight it is to write Felix Iresso. The man is tragically underused in fanfiction (and in the game itself, to be honest - he comes far too late in the Jedi Consular storyline, in my opinion; I wanted more time with him!).


	23. All Your Mental Armour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Miranza talk. Vector receives comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for alcoholism, aftermath of torture

_**Belsavis, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The dock behind the little cottage was a good place to sit and brood, Theron had discovered. It was close enough to the house that he was still within sensor range of the perimeter droids yet far enough away that he felt like he had some privacy. The small lake at the rear of the property was cold – too cold for swimming at this time of year – but he could dip his toes in and he had a glass of whiskey to keep him warm. (Technically speaking Theron had a bottle of whiskey, but he was pouring it into a small tumbler so he wasn’t drinking straight from the bottle. That was something, right?) The night was calm and quiet, with only the occasional calls from nocturnal animals and the gentle lapping of the water under the dock to fill the night air. One of Belsavis’s three moons shone bright and full overhead, the second just beginning to rise, and the lack of light pollution on the planet meant the sky was filled with stars, more than he could ever hope to see somewhere like Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa.

Theron was not quite drunk, but he was certainly working on it. It had taken him forever to fall asleep only to be woken up after an hour or so by one of Vector’s nightmares. He and Miranza had managed to calm the Joiner down and get him resettled, but there was nothing Theron could do to settle his own nerves and he didn’t want to disturb his lovers so he made the choice to get up and leave the bedroom. The door to the nursery was closed; Oriana and Felix were no doubt fast asleep. At first Theron had tried sitting out on the couch, reading the details on one of the planets Lana wanted them to investigate ( _“Whenever you’re ready, Theron, there’s no rush. It can wait until your whole team is together”_ ) but he was too tired and his mind wandered. Then he remembered that Felix had a decent stash of alcohol that he'd been extremely generous with, and a few shots of good-quality whiskey ought to help a man sleep.

Sleep. Pass out. Whichever.

The last time he’d been on Belsavis Miranza had nearly died. This time around, while Vector’s injuries were nowhere near as severe as hers had been, they were still there because one of Theron’s lovers was hurt and needed a safe place to recover. Theron got the impression that Felix had been trying to share the beauty and wonder of Belsavis with him earlier, but no amount of beautiful sunrises or wholesome fishing trips could change the fact that for Theron, Miranza and Vector the Republic prison planet meant nothing but pain. Stars, the first time Theron had ever stepped foot on Belsavis he had nearly murdered Miranza, and it had led to her being captured alongside him! The planet was no doubt cursed. That Vector hadn’t actually been hurt _on_ Belsavis didn’t alter the fact that he was there because of his injuries.

Theron was worried about Vector. He’d been hurt before, of course – they all had, and likely would be hurt again. But, so far as Theron knew, Vector had never been tortured before. Even the whipping he’d received had been punishment, designed to hurt and humiliate him (and Miranza), but it wasn’t quite the same as what his Imperial captors had done on Alderaan. There was no lesson here. It wasn’t an accident, or a fight, or wounds suffered in battle. Agents of the Sith Empire had wanted something from Vector and had tried to use violence to acquire it – and that was a very, _very_ different experience from any of the other ways he’d been hurt before, and unlike Theron and Miranza, Vector had no special training to help him overcome it. Theron highly doubted the Imperial Diplomatic Services provided anti-interrogation training to its employees, after all (much as he secretly suspected it was something everyone in the Empire could benefit from, given the nature of the Sith who ruled over them all). Vector was hurt, yes, but he was also badly shaken, anxious and deeply traumatized.

Some of it, Theron knew, would fade with time. The hyper-vigilance that had Vector startling at every loud noise would diminish, along with the cuts and bruises and strained muscles. The broken bones would heal. The lack of appetite would go away, as would the exhaustion and general malaise. He would recover; it would just take time. Having been through similar experiences himself, Theron would have thought he would be better-equipped to help Vector recover. Miranza was phenomenal with him, seeming to know exactly what to do, what to say, whenever Vector needed her. But Theron was awkward, uncomfortable, and he pushed too hard, too quickly, wanting his lover to be back to his old self and not giving him nearly enough time to get there on his own.

In other words, as always, Theron was a disaster.

A twig snapped behind him, startling him out of his maudlin thoughts. He glanced over his shoulder, unsurprised to see Miranza making her way cautiously towards him, a thin shawl draped around her shoulders to provide some small measure of warmth. He thought she had probably stepped on the twig on purpose – the spy equivalent to loudly clearing one’s throat – so he would know she was coming. She walked to the end of the dock, bare feet padding almost silently over the wooden planks, and sank down gracefully beside him. Stars, she had to be freezing; she wasn’t dressed for this weather.

Without a word she took the tumbler from his hand and, tossing it back, drained the whiskey in a single gulp before setting the glass down on the dock.

“I was drinking that,” Theron chided her lightly. He lifted the bottle, intending to refill the glass, but it was almost empty, so he helped himself to a swig straight from the bottle instead. He’d thought there’d been more in the bottle.

“You drink too much,” Miranza replied. There was no weight to her words; the comment was light, nonjudgmental. He thought about taking offense anyway and decided against it. He didn’t feel like fighting. After a moment he changed his mind again and said the first words that popped into his head.

“You keep secrets too much.” Apparently he _did_ feel like fighting. Theron blamed the whiskey, but knew he wasn’t _that_ drunk. He was simply angry and tired and hurting because his lover was hurting, and Miranza had gone and made herself a convenient target.

“Yes, well …” Snatching the bottle from Theron’s hand Miranza gave it a twist and sent it careening into the lake, where it landed with a soft splash. Something small and furry leapt into the nearby tree with a shrill cry of alarm and for a moment the night was filled with the sounds of birds and animals calling to each other in distress over the sudden disturbance. Miranza waited until the noises died down before pointing an index finger towards herself and finishing, “Spy, remember?”

“Also spy, remember?” Theron jerked his own index finger at his chest. “Maybe I wouldn’t be drinking so much if you weren’t always keeping secrets from me. Y’ever think of that, huh?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Miranza replied, again without heat or weight. “And that’s a lie. You were drinking too much long before Amrielle started messing with me.”

“Us,” Theron corrected her automatically. “Messing with _us.”_

“By targeting _me.”_ Miranza turned, shifting around on the dock until she was facing him and her knee was pressing against Theron’s thigh. He rested one hand on his knee, glad that she hadn’t decided to rise to his bait and take offense, glad that she hadn’t chosen to leave and abandon him to his funk. “Those bounties Kaliyo found out about, Theron: I’m pretty sure I can thank Amrielle for that, too.”

Theron thought about it, then nodded. “I figured.”

Miranza shivered a little; it was hard to tell whether it was from the cold night air or due to the course her thoughts were taking. “Hunter, back when Imperial Intelligence was dissolved, he – _she_ – did something similar, setting my old targets after me. Amrielle’s even using some of the same people: Fa’athra the Hutt, Pashon Cortess … Hunter sent both of them after me before, too. The private corporation out of Glee Anselm is probably her –”

“No big surprise, there,” Theron agreed. “Nautolan home-world and everything.”

She nodded. “Darth Zhorrid was probably easy enough to convince, once Amrielle or one of her flunkies tracked her down. She didn’t … she didn’t hate me, exactly, but she was always unstable. It would have been the easiest thing in the galaxy for Amrielle to manipulate her into putting a bounty on my head.”

“And the Republic military …” Theron drew in a deep breath before finishing, “You know that’s got to be Jace.”

“Theron …”

“Oh, come _on,_ Miranza! He already tried to bring you into custody once before – nearly got you killed in the process – and now he’s just hiring outside contractors to finish the job for him. Maybe Amrielle’s got someone working for her in the military, maybe that someone gave him the idea, but there’s no other reason for the Republic military to have a bounty out on you.” Jace’s words echoed in Theron’s head: _“Your girlfriend is a high-priority Imperial target.”_ It was true, and the Republic had certainly been known to use bounty hunters from time to time for other targets; he could remember when, years ago, the former chancellor (or had it been a Jedi) had put out a large bounty on a Mandalorian, something to do with a murdered Jedi. But Jace Malcom was normally the sort of man who did his own dirty work, he didn’t hire bounty hunters to do the job for him. Theron shook his head, trying to clear away some of the whiskey-fuelled cobwebs. “I just don’t get why she’s only coming after you. We were both there. Why isn’t she trying to mess with me, too?”

Miranza was silent, her hands straying to Theron’s knee, where her fingers began picking at the fabric of his sleep-pants. In the dim lighting the blue and green stripes blended together, making it appear that his pants were black. From the way Miranza’s brow crinkled he could tell she was thinking hard and that her thoughts were upsetting to her, and he wanted to poke her, to shove her, to yell at her to start answering the damn questions because he was so very tired of this. If she had answers, she needed to share them. All this damned secret-keeping was bullshit, spies or no spies.

“ _'You’re the only one I can talk to about all of this,’_ ” Miranza said softly, and at first Theron thought she meant him, but then he realized from the way she was speaking that she was quoting someone. When she looked up at him, her blue eyes black in the darkness, her next words confirmed his suspicions: “It’s what Hunter said to me one time. Amrielle recorded that chat – or copied the record from Hunter’s comm-logs, I don’t know. It was in one of the messages she sent me. Because I did it to her _twice,_ Theron. I ruined _everything_ for her – for the Star Cabal – _twice._ First with Hunter, then the second time when I stole you from them. When I … When I killed Samar.”

Theron frowned, fighting the sudden wave of nausea that filled him whenever that bastard’s name was mentioned. He and Miranza never talked about this, about the time they’d spent together on Corellia, he trapped under the Castellan restraints, she trapped with him out of … what, the kindness of her heart? She’d never said; he’d never asked.

“I wish you hadn’t done it,” he said, dropping his head down onto his chest, unable to meet her eyes. “Not … Not that I wish he wasn’t dead, but that … I wish you hadn’t been the one to kill him.” He swallowed heavily, the nausea still threatening. “Sometimes I think, if I had been the one to do it, it would feel more real to me.”

“Oh, Theron.” Miranza’s voice was still soft, filled with sympathy – not pity, because they both knew Theron would never stand for her to pity him – and she cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “He’s dead, Theron. Samar is _dead._ I broke a vase over his head and I cut his throat and you had to help me wash his blood off my hands because I was such a wreck. He’s dead, and he’s not coming back, and he is _never_ going to hurt you again.”

Theron nodded, conceding the point. “No, he’s not. But Amrielle is. She already has, when she sent –”

“I should never have let you see that dataspike,” Miranza began, but he caught her wrists and pulled them away from his face, startling her into silence with the intensity of his expression.

“She’s hurting _you,”_ he interrupted her, fingers squeezing around her wrists. “To hell with what was on that dataspike and what it did to me, that’s not what I meant at all, Miri, for fuck’s sake. She’s hurting _you,_ she’s threatening _you,_ she’s sending your old enemies after you, and Force damn it, you little idiot, _that’s_ what hurts me. That you’re being threatened and I have _no fucking clue_ how to protect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” Miranza huffed, growing indignant.

“Would you shut up and let me finish?” Theron leaned in and kissed her quickly on the lips to soften the rebuke, although her eyes still flashed at him angrily. “Listen to me. Of _course_ you need me to protect you, and it’s not because I don’t think you’re capable of doing it yourself, because dammit of course I know you can protect yourself! You’re terrifying, you’re magnificent, you’re … you’re … _magnificent,_ Miranza. But that’s not the point. The point is, I love you, and Vector loves you, and we protect _each other,_ because that’s what you do in relationships, right?” When it looked like Miranza still wanted to argue the matter Theron gave her wrists another little squeeze and finished, “What were you trying to do, when you kept Amrielle’s messages from me and Vector?”

Miranza opened her mouth then closed it shut again with a snap. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, fuck off, Theron, that’s not fair.”

Theron gave her a smug smile, knowing he’d won. This time. She tried to pull her hands away and this time he let her, trailing his fingertips over her open palms as her hands slid through his. Her skin was soft, cool, and he could feel the familiar callouses from weapons training and frequent use. His smile faded a little and his chin dropped a bit. Bracing himself he set his shoulders, then looked at her again.

“I do love you, you know?” he said, chewing nervously on his lower lip. “I know that stuff Amrielle showed you … with … with Samar and …”

Miranza’s hands closed around his, her fingers squeezing tight. “It wasn’t _real._ Did it hurt me to see you say those things to him? Yes, Theron, of course it did! But not because I thought you meant what you were saying, or I thought that you didn’t mean it when you said it to me or Vector. It hurt me because I know how hard it is for you to admit something like that. I was angry _for_ you, Theron, not _at_ you.” She leaned forward, brushing her lips over his, and added, “Don’t you _ever_ feel guilty for anything Samar made you do. _Not ever.”_

Theron nodded again, then let out a weak, shuddering laugh and freed his hands to brush them over his eyes, wiping away tears he didn’t feel like shedding. “I think that’s enough alcohol-induced soul-searching for one night, don’t you?”

Miranza shook her head and cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable. “Not quite. One … ah … One more thing.” She cleared her throat again, glancing away briefly before taking a deep breath and forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Theron, I really need you to cut down on your drinking.”

“What?” Theron had been reaching for her hands again, but he pulled away suddenly, his hands clenching into fists. He let out another weak laugh, tried to play it off for laughs. “Seriously, Miri, I was only joking when I said –”

“I wasn’t joking,” Miranza interrupted him, voice firm. “You do drink too much. I know it’s a coping mechanism, but there are other ones – better ones.”

“Like what?” He tried and failed to keep the skepticism out of his voice. “What do you suggest?”

“Talking?” She shrugged, then caught the front of his jacket and used it to pull him in close, her lips colliding with his in a hard kiss that left them both breathless. “Or … that. When your mind gets too noisy, say something and I’ll … distract you.”

“What? With sex? Look, Miri, I know it’s the cliché that guys are always down for that, but –”

“Shut. _Up.”_ Miranza kissed him again, long and deep, her tongue pushing past his lips to delve inside his mouth. She tasted like whiskey, and her hands were gripped tight in the front of his jacket, holding him pressed close against her. If she moved any closer she’d be sitting in his lap. When the kiss broke she spoke into his mouth, “With whatever you need, Theron. Sex, talking, hugging, sitting in silence and painting each other’s toenails – whatever you want, whatever you need to get through it, I will do. Vector will, too. You know we’re here for you. So … just … cut back on the drinking, okay? Please?”

Theron licked his lips, tasting her on his tongue, and wrapped his hands around hers. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice slightly shaky. “Yeah, I can … I can try to do that. I can do it.”

“Good.” She kissed him a third time, pulling her hands away from his jacket and running them through his hair, sliding slowly into his lap. “Thank you, Theron.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, with a shaky laugh. He arched an eyebrow at her. “Paint each other’s toenails, huh?”

She gave him an arch smile. “Pretty red to match your jacket, Shan.”

He leaned in as if to give her another kiss, wrapping his arms under her legs. With a sudden explosion of motion he pushed up to his feet and tossed her, fully clothed, into the lake. Miranza let out a high-pitched shriek as she hit the cold water, the abrupt burst of noise once again causing nocturnal animals to go scurrying into hiding, and when she resurfaced it was with a slew of curses and invectives hurled in his direction. Grinning to himself, Theron quickly shucked off his jacket, tossing it onto the dock, and dove in head-first after her.

The water was freezing, but he had some ideas on how to deal with that.

O o O o O

Theron’s earlier assessment had proven correct: the water was definitely too cold for swimming. By the time he and Miranza made their way back to shore they were both freezing, teeth chattering violently, entire bodies shivering in spite of the exercise they’d had. (In the back of his mind Theron could hear one of Jonas Balkar’s favourite sayings, which he threw out any time he got caught engaging in some reckless and stupid activity just for the sake of intercourse: _“Doesn’t matter. Had sex.”_ ) Clinging to each other for warmth as much as for the sake of intimacy the two of them staggered back into the cottage, doing their best to keep quiet so as to avoid waking the three other occupants. The antique chronometer over the fireplace read a little after two in the morning (which was actually not as late as Theron had been expecting; he had been bracing himself for it to be almost dawn), and the doors to both bedrooms were still closed.

Miranza and Theron stripped off their wet clothes in the ‘fresher – jostling each other in the small space – and hung them up in the shower stall to dry (or to deal with in the morning), then spent a few minutes cuddling together and toweling off. Theron wouldn’t have gone so far as to suggest Miranza was giggling (because of course, Miranza Gerrick _did not_ giggle), but there was definitely some breathy laughter in there and it wasn’t all just him doing it.

By the time they were dry and reasonably warm again they tiptoed (still definitely not giggling) towards the master bedroom, both wrapped up in towels, and opened the door.

The lamp on the bedside table was on, and Vector was sitting up in the middle of the bed, a datapad resting on his lap. His dark hair was tousled and half-covering his face, but Theron immediately saw the look of intense anxiety written across his features, an expression the Joiner was too exhausted and raw to hide. Vector’s chest was bare – he normally preferred to sleep in the nude and found that shirts tended to bunch up around his armpits while he slept, which would have been intensely uncomfortable with the damage his back and shoulders had taken – and the bandages around both hands stood out in sharp contrast to his tanned skin. His right hand was fully splinted and wrapped in kolto-infused bandages to speed the healing; Oriana had been forced to reset the broken bones, which had begun to heal naturally but hadn’t been set properly beforehand. (One of the downsides of Vector’s enhanced physiology, Theron had discovered, was that healing quickly did not necessarily mean healing _right,_ and without proper medical treatment broken bones might mend at odd angles or skin might close over areas of infection.) As for Vector’s left hand, only his pinky and ring fingers were broken ( _Only,_ Theron thought, with a sharp burst of anger), and although it hurt to use his hand he still had some mobility. Like Theron, however, Vector was right-handed, and the bandages and stiffness made his left hand clumsy and awkward. He could manage minor tasks – such as using a datapad – but anything requiring both hands or fine motor control was beyond him at the moment. Theron would have been losing his mind in a similar situation, but Vector seemed to be only mildly frustrated. Compared to Theron and Miranza, Vector was a model patient.

“You left us,” Vector said, when Miranza closed the door behind them. He clapped his left hand to his mouth as though he hadn’t meant for the words to tumble out, his chin lowering until more of his face was hidden behind his hair. His shoulders shook, very minutely.

“Oh, Vector,” Miranza breathed, crossing the bedroom in two steps and easing down beside him on the bed. She hesitated to draw him into her arms: she was still damp, her skin was cold, and there were few places on Vector’s upper body that were completely free of injury; Theron didn’t need the Force or Vector’s aura-sight to be able to tell that she was afraid of hurting him. She took a deep breath, then very quietly and calmly said, “I’m going to touch you, Vector. Is that all right with you?”

At Vector’s weary nod Miranza slipped her arm around his shoulders; when he relaxed against her, she lifted her other arm to draw him in close. His head rested on her chest, his face buried in her skin.

Theron sank down on Vector’s other side and waited for a nod of his own before resting a hand lightly on the other man’s thigh, over the quilts. He could feel Vector trembling slightly under his touch, and it made him want to scream and punch something. Even the knowledge that everyone responsible for Vector’s condition was dead didn’t do much to assuage Theron’s anger.

“We went for a swim, love,” Miranza said, stroking one hand over Vector’s hair.

Vector lifted his head slightly, giving her a quizzical look. “It is freezing outside.”

“Yes,” Miranza replied. She glared at Theron. “Yes it is. _Someone_ decided to throw me in the lake.”

“Yeah, well, that same someone also decided to jump in after you,” Theron retorted. “So you’re welcome.” Miranza swatted at him playfully, and Theron sobered, rubbing gentle circles over Vector’s thigh. “I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake anybody, so I went outside. Miranza followed me. We didn’t plan to be gone so long.”

“It’s fine,” Vector said with a small sigh. “We awakened and didn’t know where you were, but we knew you would not have gone far. We were just …” His voice trailed off and he frowned, sighing again. “We do not mean to be so … needy.”

“Vector.” When Theron was certain the other man was looking at him he pressed on. “You’re exhausted, you’re in pain, you probably woke up from another nightmare” – Vector nodded hesitantly – “and we weren’t there. I’m sorry. We – I wasn’t thinking. I just didn’t want to disrupt your sleep just because _I_ couldn’t sleep.”

“Love,” Miranza added, playing with Vector’s hair, “you _know_ Theron and I understand.”

And they did. Neither Theron nor Miranza were strangers to the frustration and helplessness and the sheer neediness that followed captivity and torture. Never mind the pain – in Theron’s experience, the pain was bad enough, but it was everything _else_ about the situation that was traumatic. He could take pain; he had the discipline and the implants to help him cope with it. Being subjected to deliberate brutality, however, that was something else. Sleep deprivation, stress positions, food and water being withheld: those things bothered him much more. (Never mind the other things Samar had done. At least Vector hadn’t been put through _that._ ) Everyone experienced things differently, of course, but if anyone could relate to what Vector was feeling right now, what he was going through, it would be Theron and Miranza.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Miranza asked. Slowly, with Theron’s assistance, she helped Vector lie back down on the bed, settling him against a heaping pile of pillows.

Vector shook his head, then answered anyway, “We were on Alderaan. When the Imperials came to kill our bodyguards and take us away, the bodyguards they killed weren’t Killiks.” He paused, licking dry lips. “They killed you. Both of you. We tried to fight, tried to stop it, but we failed, and you died, right in front of us. Then we woke up, and we had gotten tangled in the blankets, and we were alone.”

“Shit, Vector, I’m sorry,” Theron said again. He could’ve kicked himself for being such an idiot. “You should’ve called out. We were outside, but Oriana and Felix would have heard you.”

“We didn’t wish to wake them,” Vector replied. His left hand rested over Theron’s, thumb stroking Theron’s wrist, along the pulse-point. “There was nothing wrong.”

“They wouldn’t have minded,” said Miranza, “and they could have come to get us. I’m sorry, Vector, love – we shouldn’t have left you.”

Vector opened his mouth to protest, no doubt to say that of course they should have left him, but Theron silenced him by the simple expediency of pressing his lips to Vector’s and pouring all of the love and sympathy he felt for the man into the kiss. He was careful to keep his hands resting lightly on Vector’s thigh, giving the other man plenty of room to pull away if he needed to escape, but Vector leaned into the kiss instead and his left hand came up to rest at the base of Theron’s skull. When Theron finally drew back Vector was smiling somewhat sheepishly, his cheeks flushed.

“We concede the point,” Vector said softly, releasing his loose grip on Theron’s head. He sank back against the pillows with a small grimace, closing his eyes against the pain.

Theron glanced at the chrono, frowning. The other downside of Vector’s enhanced physiology was how quickly he burned through pain medication. The extra-strength dosage of myocaine Oriana had given him was intended to last six to eight hours – ideally enough time for Vector to get a full night’s sleep – but the pain relief typically faded within four hours. There weren’t enough studies done on Killik Joiners and medication, and no doubt there were other medical treatments they could use to alleviate Vector’s pain, but Oriana didn’t want to tax his liver by flooding him with various kinds of drugs. It was a good three hours before it would be safe for Vector to take anything more, and yet the effects of the myocaine had already worn off.

“We tried meditation, when we first woke up,” Vector commented, as if he could read Theron’s thoughts. Sometimes Theron wondered. “We found it too difficult to draw upon the necessary focus.” He sounded frustrated, and Theron could understand. He knew that Vector often found meditation a good way of getting himself through pain and other discomfort – but it wouldn’t help at all if his pain and discomfort kept him from achieving the focus required to meditate in the first place. He couldn’t take more painkillers, their kolto supply was limited (and mostly being used to help his hand heal), he couldn’t meditate … There weren’t a lot of options available to him, at the moment.

Well, Theron could think of one, actually.

He leaned back slightly, one hand raising behind Vector’s back to quickly sign at Miranza. Rekka had been teaching them all sign language – Theron didn’t know if it was some Mandalorian variant but it was certainly handy to be able to sign in the field, especially in case something took her implants out and left her unable to hear – and while Miranza and Vector were picking up on it much faster than Theron himself, he found he had a knack for certain terms and phrases. In Theron’s experience the dirty words and expressions were always the easiest parts to pick up when learning any new tongue, and while he’d never possess the extensive linguistic skills of his partners he still knew how to say _“Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”_ in about twenty different languages.

That wasn’t exactly what he signed to Miranza, but … it wasn’t that far off, either.

“How about we try something else to deal with your pain?” Theron asked, as Miranza nodded and removed a couple of pillows so that Vector was supine on the bed. “Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to wear you out a bit so you can get some sleep.”

Vector’s eyelashes fluttered, his eyes widening. His cheeks flushed, and at first Theron thought it was from arousal until the Joiner admitted cautiously, “We don’t know if we will …” His left hand waved, gesturing vaguely. “Be able to, at the moment.”

“That’s fine,” Theron assured him, although his heart broke a little at the obvious embarrassment in Vector’s voice. “We’ll do all the work, and if it’s not … not helping, it’ll be fine. You don’t need to do anything.” He cleared his throat and grabbed hold of the blanket around Vector’s waist, his eyes on the Joiner’s face as he asked, “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Vector opened his mouth to say something like “Of course” or “Always” before changing his mind and simply saying, voice slightly breathless, “Yes.” Theron nodded and drew the blanket down, sliding the soft fabric down over Vector’s hips and piling it at the foot of the bed. Vector was clad in simple sleep-pants, the dark ones with the tiny red bugs on them, and after a small nod from Vector and with Miranza’s assistance Theron drew those down as well, leaving the Joiner naked on the bed. As Vector had warned his cock was soft and limp between his legs, but Theron wasn’t particularly troubled by this; Vector didn’t need to have an erection to feel good, nor did Theron take it as any indication of disinterest.

Theron stood, letting the towel drop from around his waist as he moved to the foot of the bed and crawled up between Vector’s legs. His own cock was stirring faintly, vague twitches of interest, but he wasn’t a teenager anymore and his refractory period wasn’t over yet; besides, this wasn’t about him or for him. He doubted Vector had either the energy or the maneuverability for sex, anyway. He kissed his way up Vector’s legs, noting with some detachment that the lower half of Vector’s body was far less damaged than the upper half and all the bruises from his captivity were gone. The strain on Vector’s legs had been far less than what his back, shoulders and arms had been put through. Even so, Theron’s kisses were soft, tender, and he avoided the spots that normally tickled; he didn’t want Vector tensing up or jerking away suddenly.

When Theron reached Vector’s groin he moved past it, lips tracing the line of his hipbones, the smooth V of muscles. Vector let out a long, shuddering sigh that was cut off when Miranza leaned down and kissed him, her hands gently cupping his face.

“If you need me to stop,” Theron said, lifting his head and speaking clearly, “let me know. Okay?”

Vector nodded jerkily, and Miranza pulled away from his mouth to let him speak: “Please don’t stop.”

A faint smirk tugging at his lips, Theron nodded and began moving his mouth over and around Vector’s pelvis, kissing and licking in ever-decreasing circles until he was finally brushing his lips over the other man’s cock. Vector jerked, grimacing at the pain the sudden movement caused, and Theron waited, eyes on the Joiner’s face to see if he needed to back off. When Vector let out a long, shuddering sigh and nodded again Miranza’s hands settled on him lightly, one cupping his face, the other resting on his chest. She wasn’t quite holding him down – there was no way to keep Vector from moving that wouldn’t immediately cause him to panic, not right now – but the gentle pressure was enough to keep him in place, to prevent him from trying to get up. Miranza went back to kissing Vector, her hand on his chest stroking over his nipples, then down to his stomach.

Settling on one elbow, Theron ran his free hand over Vector’s cock, giving it a gentle stroke which he then followed up with his lips. Vector moaned into Miranza’s mouth and Theron was pleased to see faint stirrings of life, Vector’s cock beginning to harden under the gentle pressure of Theron’s hand and mouth. When he was finally fully erect Theron took him into his mouth and the Joiner let out a low keening sound, his hips bucking ever so slightly.

Theron let the cock slip free of his lips, curling his fingers around it as he checked in again. “Still good?”

Vector made a noise of contentment and agreement that was swallowed up by Miranza’s mouth. Her hand came down to rest on top of Theron’s head as he took Vector in as fully as he could, and when she scratched her fingernails lightly across his scalp he let out a hum of pleasure that reverberated along Vector’s cock and made the Joiner gasp. His hips bucked again and Theron felt him briefly tense in pain; then Miranza was soothing him back down, hands stroking along the corded muscles of his arms.

“You’re okay,” she murmured, pressing small kisses along Vector’s lips, his jaw, down the side of his throat and over his collarbone. “You’re here, you’re safe. We’ve got you, darling.”

“Stars!” Vector gasped out, as Theron began to bob his head up and down. “We – I – we love you!”

Theron hummed in agreement, drawing back so that he could lick a stripe up Vector’s cock. When he drew him back in he felt a hand come down on his head; a quick glance out of the corner of his eye revealed that it was Vector’s left hand, guided in place by Miranza, and together their fingers carded through Theron’s hair. Theron let Miranza direct his movements, the two of them working in tandem to push Vector closer and closer to the edge. The Joiner was moaning and gasping into Miranza’s mouth, his hand on Theron’s head falling away as his undamaged fingers curled around the blanket beside him.

“We’ve got you, love,” Miranza whispered against Vector’s lips. “We’re here, you’re safe.”

Vector came with a soft, almost startled-sounding gasp, as if his orgasm caught him completely off-guard. Theron suckled him through it, stroking what his mouth couldn’t reach, milking Vector through his orgasm and only backing off when the sensations became too intense for the other man. Theron swallowed and climbed up the bed to lie alongside Vector as Miranza drifted into the ‘fresher and returned with a warm, damp cloth that she used to clean Vector up. Vector attended to, she curled up on his other side and Theron drew the blankets up over them all, nestling in close. Miranza’s hand slid across Vector’s waist to find Theron’s hand, and he squeezed her fingers, noting the faint trembling. Between them Vector lay drowsy and satiated, the look of pain on his face replaced by one of dreamy contentment.

“How’s your hand?” Theron asked him, planting a soft kiss along the curve of Vector’s jaw. The Joiner was in need of a shave, dark stubble rubbing coarse against Theron’s skin.

“What hand?” Vector replied sleepily, smiling.

Miranza chuckled and settled her head on Vector’s pillow, her forehead resting against his cheek. Normally she would have used his shoulder or his chest for her pillow but she didn’t want to risk hurting him. Theron gave her hand another squeeze and she squeezed back.

“You’re here,” Theron said out loud, speaking to both of them even as he was echoing Miranza’s words to Vector. “You’re safe.”

_I've got you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the excellent suggestion of the lovely and talented InyriAscending, the title of this chapter comes from a lyric of the song "Mouth" by Bush. That song really _is_ perfect for my OT3 (particularly Theron/Miranza).


	24. Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron thinks too much, Vector thinks too much, Theron thinks too much _again_ and Miranza provides a distraction. (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for references to torture and alcoholism

_**Belsavis, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

When Theron woke the next day it was much, much later than he had expected. The master bedroom was dim, early afternoon sunlight filtering in through the curtains, the sun having already begun to pass over the little cottage. The bedroom was quiet and cozy, the bed warm and soft, and Vector was sprawled facedown beside Theron, his face turned away towards Miranza – who was also fast asleep, burrowing under the covers with just a bit of blonde fluff peeking out to show where her head was.

Rolling onto his side, the quilts sliding down to his hips, Theron rested his head on his elbow and took a moment to appreciate the view. In the weak lace-filtered sunlight the scars on Vector’s bare back were silvery and faint, and most of his more recent cuts and bruises had faded, courtesy of Oriana’s Force-healing and a few healthy doses of kolto. With his bandaged hands tucked under his pillow it was almost possible to believe Vector completely healed, but Theron knew his lover would wake up stiff and in pain, and that the Joiner wouldn’t utter a single word of complaint about it.

Stars, the man was beautiful. They both were. For all that Theron couldn’t see their faces – Miranza was little more than a lump under the blankets and all he saw of Vector was the fall of sleep-tousled black hair – he had them memorized and could see them whenever he closed his eyes. Vector: smooth, elegant features, with a patrician nose and dark eyebrows like the wings of a bird. Tall and lean and all chiseled muscle, the kind of body one expected of a warrior – which he was – and not of an academic – which he also was. Straight black hair he kept swept back from his face, save for now, when it spilled across his pillow and covered his cheeks. And those strange fathomless black eyes that once upon a time had been foreign and intimidating, and now were as perfect and familiar to Theron as the dip in his lips or the way he crooked his head when he smiled. And Miranza, all smooth, creamy pale skin and dark blue eyes, with a round face that made her look younger than her thirty-two years and curly blonde hair that she could twist into incredibly complex designs but that Theron loved best when it was loose and tumbling about her shoulders. Most of the time the two of them appeared posh and elegant and perfectly put together, but it was moments like this – pillow lines on cheeks, messy hair, no makeup, _stars,_ no _clothing_ – that their beauty hit Theron the hardest.

Unable to help himself, Theron leaned forward and planted a feathery-light kiss on Vector’s back, above the patch of skin where the whip had dug in deepest, cutting through flesh and down into the muscle beneath. On cold, damp nights Theron or Miranza would massage this stretch of skin, trying to ease the tension in Vector’s back. It would be worse now, Theron knew, thanks to how the Imperials had forced Vector to crouch. Theron had no idea how long Vector had been trapped in that stress position, arms stretched out behind his back, crouching on the balls of his feet. The days had blended together for Vector and he’d lost all sense of time, making it impossible to gauge. _Too long._ They should have found him sooner.

There wasn’t a single scar on Vector’s body that Theron didn’t hold himself in some way responsible for. The ones on Vector’s back were because Vector and Miranza had refused to hand Theron over to their Imperial masters. The new ones, the ones on his hands and arms, were because Theron had taken too long to find him.

Theron traced the scars with his lips, permitting himself a moment of sappy affection when no one was around to bear witness to it. They said they loved each other all the time but it was still a difficult concept for Theron to grasp. Growing up, he had loved Master Zho, the old Jedi who raised him when his mother made the difficult choice to give him up, but he’d never _said_ it, and certainly Master Zho had never told Theron he loved him, even if Theron had felt it. Love and affection were shown in myriad ways, but never vocalized. And after Master Zho had been Theron’s short-lived stint with the Jedi Order, where he’d been one child among many and, ultimately, a disappointment to them all when he’d proven to be completely blind to the Force. After that, years on the street, bouncing from one planet to the next, putting the skills and discipline he’d learned from Master Zho to entirely different uses: racing swoop-bikes, stealing away on freighters, pickpocketing, getting into fights with kids who were bigger and stronger but slower and less agile than him. Those same skills had made the SIS a perfect fit for him, but his transient childhood made relationships a constant challenge. He didn’t know how to express love and he had a foolish tendency to fall for anyone who showed him the least amount of affection. It wasn’t really love, though, it was just him getting his hopes up, until the easiest thing to do was to shut himself down and focus on his work.

Until Rishi, and Yavin 4. Until Corellia, and Alderaan, and two Imperial agents Theron had no right to be so kriffing happy with.

Vector came awake suddenly, his entire body going tense and perfectly still while he tried to figure out where he was and who was touching him. Theron drew back slightly, giving the other man some room, and after a moment Vector relaxed and turned his head so that he was facing him.

“Mm,” Vector said, dark eyelashes fluttering as he blinked sleepily at Theron. “Good morning.”

“Actually, I think it might be afternoon by now,” Theron replied, leaning forward to give the other man a good-morning kiss regardless of what time of day it was. “How are you feeling?”

Vector considered the question carefully, closing his eyes briefly as if to focus inwards. When he opened them again there was a faint line of pain between his brows that Theron wanted to kiss away.

“Sore,” he admitted, gradually easing his hands out from under his pillow and rolling over onto his side, fully facing Theron. “We slept well, however.” _For once_ remained unspoken between them, and a hint of embarrassment crossed his face. “We’re afraid we do need to use the refresher, and we suspect we might require your assistance in getting us there.” Vector sighed and made a face. “Indeed, we might need your assistance in getting out of bed in the first place.”

Theron very studiously locked his expression down, not wanting to let the other man see how deeply it cut him to know that Vector was still suffering. No doubt the Joiner could read it in Theron’s aura anyway, but Vector said nothing, and Theron eased out of bed, throwing back the covers and letting Vector do as much of the work of getting himself up as possible. It was a slow, painful process, but Vector managed to get to the edge of the mattress under his own steam, and it wasn’t until he tried to stand and his knees gave a little that Theron looped an arm around the other man’s waist and helped him up.

Miranza’s head poked out of the blankets and she glared at both men blearily from under a cascade of dark blonde curls. Theron motioned for her to go back to sleep and she nodded once, giving him a stern yet fond look before flouncing back under the covers with a sleepy grumble.

Theron helped Vector over to the bedroom door, opening it cautiously and peering out into the main area beyond. Neither he nor Vector were dressed, and if anyone else was up he would have to grab robes for them both before they ventured out to the ‘fresher. But a quick glance around revealed the cottage to be quiet and empty, with the nursery door opened wide to show there was no one inside. It was possible that Felix and Oriana had gone out to run errands – for the most part they had continued to go about their daily lives as though there weren’t three guests occupying their master bedroom, one of them badly injured. Deciding that some discretion might be appreciated Theron grabbed their bathrobes from the hook by the door and hastily donned one, draping the second over Vector’s shoulders to provide him as much modesty as possible. Actually getting him into the robe risked putting strain on Vector’s shoulders, and Theron wasn’t certain the cast and bandages around his right hand would fit through the sleeve anyway. Besides, it wasn’t as though the Jedi and her husband hadn’t seen Vector in his altogether already. Modesty was for other people.

The cottage was quiet and peaceful, and Theron took his time guiding Vector towards the ‘fresher, letting the other man determine the pace of their steps. By the time they reached the ‘fresher door Vector had eased most of the kinks out and was walking more or less unassisted, with only a slight limp. He didn’t need Theron’s help to use the toilet – Theron had been prepared for it, given that both of Vector’s hands were bandaged, but he had enough mobility with his left hand to get the job done – but when he finished and had washed his hands, he sat down on the edge of the large wooden tub, and Theron was alarmed by how suddenly and quickly Vector seemed to sag in on himself.

“What is it?” Theron asked, hovering hesitantly over the other man, uncertain as to what he should do. “Do you need anything? Does anything hurt? Should I get Miranza?”

Vector let his breath out in a huff, shaking his head slowly. “It’s … We are fine, love. Just tired.” The fingers of his left hand curled around the soft edges of his bathrobe, pulling it close around his shoulders like a cape. When he looked up at Theron there was bitter amusement on his face. “We always expected we would be better at this, you know.”

“At … what?” Theron was confused and made no effort to hide it in his voice or expression. He leaned his hip against the sink, folding his arms across his chest before unfolding them again and letting his hands dangle at his sides.

“At this.” Vector gestured towards himself with his heavily-bandaged right hand. “Before Corellia – the first time, we mean – she tried to prepare us for what we might expect to happen.”

Theron nodded slowly, still confused. He knew Miranza and Vector had been on Corellia years before they had met him, and that Miranza had been under orders from her handler at Intelligence to get captured by their enemies in the Star Cabal. Her assignment had been to plant false information by ‘breaking’ under torture and confessing fabricated details on Imperial battle plans. Neither she nor Vector spoke about the experience aside from vague references, but Theron knew from personal experience what torture and interrogation were like.

“Hard to prepare for something like that,” he said quietly, and Vector nodded, humming in agreement.

“At the time we thought the hardest part was watching our wife being beaten, and being under orders not to interfere – and even that, we could not do.” Vector’s voice was soft, with a faint note of derision directed at himself. “We called out to her, when we ought to have kept our mouth shut, and one of the interrogators turned on us. Through it all Miranza was … exquisite. Arrogant and angry and … so contemptuous of them. They didn’t frighten her, no matter what they did or threatened to do to her. But then they hit us, and we saw the flash of terror in her aura, and it wasn’t for herself but fear, genuine fear over what might happen to us now that we’d drawn attention to ourselves. The last thing we saw before we were beaten unconscious was her trying to redirect them back onto her.”

“Vector …” The word trailed off uncertainly and Theron’s hands clenched into fists, indecision warring within him.

“We knew what you went through on Rishi,” Vector continued, speaking down at his hands where they sat in his lap. “We knew, too, what you both went through … later.” Theron was grateful the other man didn’t say Samar’s name or do anything more than obliquely mention Corellia and the nightmare he and Miranza had gone through there. Vector sighed again, heavily, oblivious to Theron’s thoughts. “We knew what you had been through, and Miranza had given us some training to resist interrogation, but … We were not prepared for this.”

“You’re a diplomat, not a spy,” Theron said. He pushed off from the counter and sat beside Vector on the edge of the tub, and after a moment of hesitation the Joiner leaned against him, resting his dark head on Theron’s shoulder. “I’ve got fancy implants, Jedi training and anti-interrogation training from the SIS, and I still didn’t think I’d be able to make it through Corellia. If Miranza hadn’t been there …”

He trailed off again. If Miranza hadn’t been captured with him, he truly believed he would have lost his mind long before his friends had come to rescue him. There was a small part of him that was glad she had been there with him, as horrible as it was to have her suffering alongside him. The moment he had realized that she wasn’t trapped under the Castellan restraints the way he had been, that had been when he’d first seen a glimmer of hope that they would actually get out of there alive.

“You would have escaped on your own,” Vector replied. His voice was filled with such utter conviction that it nearly brought tears to Theron’s eyes. He wasn’t accustomed to someone believing in him so strongly. “Together was simply faster.”

“You would’ve gotten out of there on your own, too, back on Alderaan,” Theron told him, but Vector shook his head, a small smile playing about his lips.

“No, we don’t think so,” he said quietly, “although it pleases us to know you believe it.” His smile broadened, becoming stronger, and he rubbed his cheek on Theron’s shoulder. “We knew you would come for us, however.”

Theron swallowed heavily around the lump in his throat. _We took too damned long._ The time spent in transit from Hutta to Alderaan, the time wasted trying to track Vector down, Theron slicing Imperial security feeds and the Killiks racing around the planet searching for him … All that time Vector was held prisoner, being hurt, being tortured and _stars,_ if they’d taken even longer he might have _died._ And Theron knew from personal experience how difficult it was to come back from something like this. Never mind the pain, never mind the worry about nerve damage or permanent injuries; the hard part, in Theron’s experience, was learning how to live inside his own body and his own mind again in spite of what had been done to him. While Vector’s captivity differed from Theron’s in many ways, there was no escaping the fact that he had been held against his will and made to suffer, his freedom and his autonomy taken from him.

The difference was, Vector had Miranza and Theron to help him recover.

For the most part, Theron had had to make do on his own. He hadn’t done a terribly great job of it.

“Of course we came for you,” Theron said, voice a little ragged. He ducked his head, planting a light kiss on Vector’s temple.

“Of course,” Vector agreed, as if it was an obvious thing. Theron wondered if he would ever possess his lover’s complete and absolute faith in this – he knew that if he were to go through the same situation again, he would still be surprised by the rescue. He knew Vector and Miranza loved him, but there was still that lost, abandoned child in the back of his mind who would always be doubting his place in the galaxy and who would forever be questioning whether or not he was really wanted. Whether or not they would _really_ come for him, or if this time would be the time they decided he wasn’t worth the effort.

“C’mon,” he said at last, climbing to his feet. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“Mm,” Vector said; it took him a bit more effort, but he managed to stand without assistance, and Theron let him walk back towards the bedroom on his own. “The thought of wiling the day away in bed does hold a considerable amount of appeal to us.”

Theron could not have agreed more.

O o O o O

Sleep proved to be elusive. At heart Theron wasn’t a lazy man, and even a well-deserved break such as this wasn’t enough for him to be able to just lounge in bed all afternoon. He didn’t want to disturb Vector and Miranza, however – Vector needed as much rest as he could manage, and Miranza was content to wind herself around the Joiner and read while he slept – so before his own restless energy became too much he climbed out of bed, threw on a pair of sleep-pants and an old T-shirt, and headed back out into the main room.

A scrap of flimsi on the table that had missed his notice earlier caught his eye as he drifted to the kitchen in search of something to drink, and he saw a hand-written note from Oriana that said she and Felix were spending the day at their friend Khatera’s cottage. Khatera was the woman who was taking care of Felix and Oriana’s two children, keeping the little rugrats out from under foot while Vector was being seen to. Felix had pointed Khatera’s cottage out to Theron when they had first arrived on Belsavis; it was about a half-hour’s walk away. Judging by the tone of the letter (not to mention a hastily-drawn smiley face with a winking eye that Theron suspected was in Felix’s hand) Oriana and Felix were giving the three of them some privacy for the day, and Theron wondered just how noisy they’d been the night before.

Smirking faintly, Theron helped himself to a glass from the cupboards, intent upon pouring himself some water or juice, when his gaze fell on an opened bottle of whiskey. Any other alcoholic beverage and he would have turned away, but the whiskey reminded him of how tired and frustrated he was feeling, and honestly, just one glass would take the edge off and maybe he’d be able to go back to bed with Vector and Miranza. All that shit that’d been dredged up between him and Vector in the ‘fresher earlier had left him feeling anxious and wrung out, and it wasn’t like he was planning on killing the whole bottle. Theron poured himself a shot, then, thinking on it, topped his glass off and carried it over to the table. He set the glass down on top of the note from Oriana, picked up his datapad, and sat down to read.

Lana had been sending them updates while they were on Belsavis, keeping the three of them informed about the ongoing process of establishing their little resistance movement. Now that they had a solid lead on where Caedan Savarr was being kept they were able to start making plans to retrieve him. Lana also had a list of planets she wanted them to check out, places that might be suitable for housing their resistance once they had more people willing to work with them, and Theron was beginning to look forward to that part of the process. The idea of traveling to unknown worlds and exploring them to determine their suitability seemed exciting to him, like something out of one of the adventures Master Zho had read to him as a child. In spite of recent setbacks Theron was starting to get the feeling that everything was coming together: they knew where Caedan was, they were pulling in people from all over the galaxy, they were building an actual alliance and the idea of being able to take down Emperor Arcann was beginning to feel like a real possibility, rather than something he, Lana, Miranza and Vector dreamed up over a few too many bottles of red wine. This was real. This was happening.

Theron was halfway through Lana’s latest report – tentative suggestions for potential recruits – and more than halfway through his glass of whiskey when he heard the bedroom door open. His head snapped up and he set his glass down with rather more force than was strictly necessary, plastering on a weak smile as Miranza approached him. Her hair was a tousled mess and she had thrown on one of Theron’s own T-shirts, the Hello Nexu one he’d shoved into his bug-out bag. He saw her eyes take in the glass in his hand, her lips pressing together in a thin line. He prepared to defend himself from the lecture he just _knew_ had to be coming, but all Miranza did was come and sit on the table directly in front of him, swiping the glass from his hand and downing the remaining whiskey in a single gulp.

“Stand up,” she said, voice rough from the burn of the whiskey.

“It was just the one glass,” Theron began defensively, but she shook her head, setting the tumbler on the table behind her and motioning for him to rise.

“Stand up,” she ordered again, in a tone that brooked no arguments.

Puzzled and still vaguely defensive, Theron pushed the chair back and stood. Miranza gestured for him to move away from the table, to the more open living room area, and as he did so she slipped down from the table and followed him. Her movements were slow and graceful, with a sensual, predatory grace that immediately set him on edge.

“Take your shirt off,” Miranza ordered him.

Smirking, Theron did as he was told, saying, “Y’know, it’s much more fun if we’re _both_ naked.”

“Take your pants off,” Miranza commanded, ignoring his comment. She was pacing around him in slow circles, almost but not quite close enough to brush up against him, and he was aware of her gaze on him, her dark blue eyes roaming over his bared chest and arms.

Hands on the ties of his sleep-pants, Theron hesitated, uncertain. He expected her to be angry with him for drinking when he’d told her he would try to cut back, but this … whatever this was, it wasn’t anger. He couldn’t get a read on her face, however; her features were smooth, impassive, as cool and composed as if she’d been carved from stone. Normally when they played at games of dominance and submission there was a discussion beforehand where they addressed limits, safe-words, triggers. They didn’t just launch into things. Theron had the feeling that he had waded out into uncertain waters, and he wasn’t sure if there might be sharks lurking.

“You think too much,” Miranza said softly, tapping her index finger between Theron’s brows. “Shut your brain off and just do what you’re told, like a good boy.”

Something about the way she said those words – _“good boy”_ – shot straight through to Theron’s groin. Hesitancy replaced by interest and a rather sharp desire to see where this was leading, Theron quickly unlaced the ties of his pants, then skimmed them down over his hips, letting his sleep-pants pool at his feet. When he straightened again his cock was already more than half-hard, and the cool air of the living room made his skin prickle with goose-flesh.

Miranza moved behind him, close enough that he felt her T-shirt brush against his bare buttocks. Her hands rested lightly on his hips, thumbs brushing over his hipbones. He thought about commenting again about her still being partially clothed, but found he rather liked the idea of being exposed and vulnerable before her like this. Anyone else – well, anyone else save for the Joiner sleeping in the nearby bedroom – and Theron would have felt uncomfortable, but with Miranza he just felt aroused and intrigued. She went up on her tiptoes behind him, pressing her lips to the sensitive spot right behind his ear before catching his earlobe in her teeth and giving a short, sharp tug.

“Any time you need this to stop, tell me,” Miranza said, her breath warm against his neck. “Until then, I promise I’ll be gentle.”

“Don’t be,” Theron found himself saying, voice gone husky. Miranza chuckled, a sound that went directly to his groin, and smacked him lightly on the ass with the palm of her hand. He let out a surprised laugh, earning himself another light smack before Miranza stalked back around in front of him and slowly, gracefully sank to her knees.

She took Theron’s hands in her own, bringing them up to rest on her shoulders. He gave her shoulders a squeeze, feeling the fabric of his T-shirt bunching under his fingers, then started to pull his hands away so that he could stroke her hair. She immediately caught his hands again and brought them back to her shoulders, giving him a stern look made no less serious by the fact that her face was a hair’s breadth away from his cock.

“Keep them there,” she ordered him, her breath warm against his skin.

“Or what?” Theron tried for a joking tone but found his voice tight and strained, excitement beginning to course through him like a wild current.

“Or I’ll punish you,” Miranza replied evenly, and Theron’s cock twitched a little. He was fully erect, all the blood pooling in his groin, and his hands resting on Miranza’s shoulders felt like they were made of lead.

Theron’s knees buckled a little when Miranza took him into her mouth, and he would have dropped like a stone if it hadn’t been for his death-grip on her shoulders. She drew him in fully, as far as she could take him, then pulled back and let her tongue trace along his length. Her hands slid up his inner thighs, her touch too heavy to be ticklish, and when she curled her fingers around his cock he let out a long, low groan. She knew every little trick he liked, every way to tease and torment him, and it was blissful agony – or agonizing bliss, he couldn’t be certain. One benefit of tumbling into bed with a couple was that Vector and Miranza had a tendency to work on him together, teaching each other all the little ways to get him off, and as a result it was next to impossible to beat their oral skills. Even without Vector present Miranza knew exactly how to leave Theron weak in the knees. A couple of times he found his hands slipping away from her shoulders and he had to tighten his grip, his fingers twisting in the T-shirt, digging into the bone and muscle beneath. He wanted to pull his hands away so that he could tangle them in her hair, but he didn’t know what Miranza would do to punish him and at the moment the worst punishment he could think of was that she would _stop._

Theron’s fingers dug into Miranza’s shoulders and she made a small noise of discomfort but didn’t pull away. Holding his cock in one hand she ran her tongue up and down his length, following it up with little butterfly kisses and then drawing him back fully into her mouth. He groaned again, feeling the involuntary tightening of his buttocks that signalled his impending orgasm and his knees began to shake. Just when he was on the verge of coming Miranza pulled back, releasing his cock with a loud smack of her lips. He couldn’t hold back the whiny, needy sound that escaped his mouth.

“Lie down,” she instructed him, pulling away so that his hands fell from her shoulders. “On your back.”

Theron complied hastily, settling himself down on the hardwood floor, unable to tear his eyes away from her. Miranza sank back on her haunches and pulled his T-shirt off over her head, tossing it somewhere in the direction of his own discarded clothing. He could see the red imprints of his fingers on her pale skin, marks that might darken to bruises later on. She climbed over him, straddling his hips, and he gasped when her cunt came into contact with his cock, grinding him up against his belly. His hands came up, seemingly of their own volition, to clutch at her breasts as his hips thrust upwards, desperate for more contact. Miranza shook her head and caught his wrists in her hands, leaning down to pin him against the floor. Theron’s breath caught and for a brief moment he had to fight the urge to break free from her grasp; he didn’t like being restrained, and only the fact that he trusted her kept him from actively fighting her off. She kissed him, grinding her hips against his, but kept his wrists pinned to the floor. He knew he could break free of her grip – she was strong, but he knew he was stronger – and that knowledge was enough to keep him from trying. He had a fleeting thought that he was damaged goods, that before Samar none of this would have bothered him in the least, and that he didn’t know why Miranza or Vector put up with him.

“Stop thinking,” Miranza growled at him, nipping his lower lip and then kissing him again, long and deep, leaving them both breathless. “Focus on _this”_ – she thrust against him, wet and hot – “and not whatever dark places your brain wants to take you.” Then she raised her hips and released one of his wrists, using her now-free hand to guide him inside her. As she sank back down again Theron whimpered, and when she began moving her hips he found himself arching upwards to meet her. She set a grueling pace, far harder and faster than was their usual wont, and when Theron’s hands came up to clutch her buttocks and pull her down hard against him she didn’t push them away. Instead, she curled her fingers around his wrists, keeping his hands in place, encouraging him to squeeze her more tightly.

The floor was hard and cold and Theron was pretty sure he was getting splinters in his backside but he didn’t care in the slightest because Miranza was wet and hot and tight. His fingers dug into the smooth globes of her ass, yanking her down to meet his thrusts, and her hands released his wrists only to twist in his short dark hair, forcing his head to one side so that she could worry at his the side of his throat with lips and teeth and tongue, leaving him gasping.

“Harder,” he managed to gasp out, and he didn’t know whether he meant her mouth or her hips. She didn’t seem to know – or care – either, and her hips snapped forward with bruising force, fucking him into the floor as her teeth closed around the side of his neck.

With a sudden surge Theron pushed himself up into a sitting position, hooking his arms around Miranza to keep her in place. They both had less leverage this way, but he could wrap his arms around her and draw her in close, and when she raked her fingernails down his back it left him shuddering and crying out. He kept pushing until he was the one on top, his hips grinding Miranza’s down against the floorboards. He caught her ankles and lifted them up onto his shoulders, readjusting himself to drive into her from this new angle. Her hand slid between them, fingers working feverishly between her legs, and the sight of her getting herself off while he fucked her pushed him over the edge. He came with a harsh grunt, and when he pulled out it was Miranza’s turn to let out a needy little whine until his hand replaced his cock, fingers slipping inside of her to stroke her to her own completion.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Theron said, when they had both collapsed side by side on the floor, “but what the kriff was that?”

“A distraction,” Miranza replied, somehow managing to sound both smug and breathless at the same time.

Right. The whiskey. Theron frowned and sat up, looking around on the floor for his clothes. His pants were nearby, but he must’ve thrown his T-shirt halfway across the room; it had managed to land on the back of one of the chairs.

“Are you angry with me?” he asked, standing and tugging on his pants. If they were going to get into a fight he wanted to be at least partially clothed for it.

“Angry? No.” Miranza also stood, stretching in a way that would have had him instantly erect if he hadn’t just finished coming. There were bruises forming on her shoulders and thighs, and Theron was confident he had his own set of bruises to match, not to mention nail-marks all down his back and a bunch of hickeys on his neck like a damned teenager. _Still not complaining._

Miranza came to stand in front of him, going up on tiptoes again to kiss him on the lips, one hand resting lightly on his chest.

“No, I’m not angry,” she said, giving him another kiss. “You’re not going to be able to just quit drinking entirely overnight, and I don’t expect you to. I would rather you not try to hide it from me, though. If you’re struggling I want to be there to help you.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Theron said, closing his eyes. He rested his chin on the top of Miranza’s head, pulling her in close. Her arms wrapped around him, her hands splayed across his bare back.

“You’re doing fine,” Miranza assured him, her words muffled against his chest. He drew back a little and she looked up at him, her blue eyes warm and open. “You’re better than you think, sweetheart. And Vector and I love you and want to help you no matter what.”

Theron let out a shuddering sigh, blinking his eyes closed to hold back the sudden tears forming there. “Stars, I fucking love you, you know that?”

“I do,” Miranza said, kissing him again. “I really _do_ know that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this one was "Sanctuary" by Annette Ducharme. I may be the only person who remembers this song, but man, I freaking loved it so much and it really set the tone for me here.
> 
> As a note, this was totally _not_ the direction this chapter was supposed to go in. There was supposed to be talking and plot development. Miranza and Theron had other ideas, though. *shrugs* I've been struggling with it for a few days now and have decided to just post it as-is.


	25. Here It Goes Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Miranza go for a walk (okay, speeder-run) in the woods.

_**Belsavis, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“Well, this is thrilling. Bracing, even.”

Miranza glanced over at the sarcastic tone in Theron’s voice, tossing him a wry smirk before focusing her attention on the sensor panel. Neither thrilling nor bracing were the words she would use to describe their little foray into the wilderness that surrounded Oriana and Felix’s cottage, but she wasn’t going to complain about their excuse to get out of the house for a while. Both she and Theron were getting restless waiting for the Jedi to finish the last of Vector’s Force-healing, and if the two of them stayed cooped up in the cottage any longer there was liable to be bloodshed. The only thing in question was whose blood it was going to be.

Fortunately for their collective sanity, there were recurring problems with the proximity sensors that guarded the perimeter of the Jedi’s property on Belsavis. Qyzen, their Trandoshan bodyguard-cum-nanny, had been grumbling about the critters that had chewed their way through the delicate wiring inside the sensors; apparently some of the smaller animals on Belsavis liked to use the wires for their nests, and made a habit of ripping through the sensors to tear out what they needed. The creatures were harmless enough but every time they damaged the sensors the alarms would go off, necessitating that someone had to go out and check on them since the alarms couldn’t differentiate between furry little thieves and rampaging hordes of angry prisoners. Qyzen would have been thrilled to deal with the prisoners – _those,_ at least, were worthy of Jagannath points – but the critters were becoming an increasing annoyance to the Trandoshan. When the sensors were tripped again Theron and Miranza were only too happy to volunteer for repair/patrol duty.

Miranza hoped they could leave Belsavis soon, and not just because she was getting bored. The planet was beautiful enough, if one was willing to overlook the prisons, but as much as she and Theron might joke about it neither of them was particularly good at the concept of vacationing. More importantly to her, however, was the fact that they couldn’t leave Belsavis until Vector was fully healed, which meant the sooner Oriana was done with him the sooner he would be pain-free again. Miranza and Theron could help him through the other facets of his recovery – not the least of which was learning to feel safe again, which was something the two of them knew all too well – but they needed Oriana’s assistance to heal his body. While Miranza and Theron were out tackling the proximity sensors Oriana was taking Vector through another gruelling bout of Force-healing, after which he would be exhausted and wrung out, but a few steps closer to regaining full functionality in his right hand. His left hand was almost entirely healed and the worst of his back and shoulder pain was gone, but his right hand required a more in-depth approach; on the plus side, Oriana was feeling confident that she would be able to repair the remaining damage. Miranza was prepared to take her husband however he came, no matter how well-healed he was, but it was something of a relief to know that the Jedi expected him to make a full recovery.

When Oriana finished healing Vector for the day she and Felix intended to head over to Khatera’s cottage to spend some time with their children (and their friend, who Miranza had met a few times and found herself quite liking). Qyzen had offered to keep Vector company while Theron and Miranza did the perimeter sweep, and while in all likelihood the Joiner would spend the remainder of the afternoon sleeping (Oriana had cautioned them that Force-healing drew upon his reserves as much as her own, and it was no wonder he was left exhausted) he and the Trandoshan had started up an unusual friendship. Vector’s insatiable curiosity had endeared him to the Trandoshan warrior, and Qyzen was delighted to regale the Joiner with the tales of his adventures, both before and after meeting the Jedi Master. Theron thought it was cute, but Miranza wouldn’t have been surprised if Vector was trying to work Qyzen’s stories into his own memoirs: a chapter or two on the life of the great Trandoshan warrior, Qyzen Fess.

“Get over here and help me,” Miranza replied after a moment, prying the panel open. Sure enough, the inside wires were torn to pieces and she could see bits of fluff and … _was that feathers?_ … mixed in from whatever creatures were getting inside the casing. Qyzen and Felix had already tried a number of different methods to keep the creatures out, from welding the panels shut to electrifying the casing to wrapping the wires in a more durable plasteel mesh, but nothing seemed to work. Miranza had suggested poison, but the horrified expressions on Oriana’s, Felix’s and Vector’s faces all made her retract her proposal. Apparently there was a risk of the poison getting back to other creatures on Belsavis and possibly disrupting the ecosystem – or something like that. She rather thought the ecosystem could stand a little disruption, frankly.

“Yes’m,” Theron said teasingly, snapping off a jaunty salute before coming over and joining her. He dutifully held the panel propped open so she could get inside the sensor’s guts to make repairs. It was a simple enough job, all things considered, even if electronics and welding weren’t really her forte. Theron was better at this sort of thing but Miranza’s hands were smaller and fit more easily inside the casement; she had no clue how Qyzen managed to get his giant, clawed hands to fit.

“It’s kinda pretty out here, isn’t it?” Theron commented, gazing around while he held the panel open.

Miranza let her eyes drift away from her work, following the direction of his gaze. Belsavis was a beautiful planet with a diverse climate and ecosystem, and it was a shame that every time she had been there it had been because of one catastrophe or another. Granted, the fact that the entire planet was one giant Republic prison made it somewhat unsuitable as a vacation spot, but removed as Oriana’s cottage was it was possible to pretend they had the place all to themselves.

One thing in particular she liked about the planet was how varied it was. Oriana’s cottage was located in a small valley surrounded by grey mountainous walls; in the valley the grass was emerald-green and lush, and there were trees large enough to drive speeders over. The lake behind her cottage was small and crystal-clear (even if _was_ too cold to swim in, regardless of what Theron thought), and Felix (with the help of his small son) had begun building a tiny little vegetable garden that would one day be able to produce enough to feed their family as well as provide a little extra for trade with the locals. Beyond their valley there were snow-capped mountains, rivers of lava, and broad fields, and all of it changed so abruptly from one area to the next that it was like stepping foot onto an entirely different world. Felix and Milo had taken her and Theron out to play in the snow, and then they had gone swimming in a watering hole that was fed by one of the nearby volcanic mountains, making the water considerably warmer than their private lake. Theron had expressed his personal opinion that it was a shame the Republic had gotten to Belsavis before the Hutts did, because the Hutts would’ve had the good sense to turn the planet into a giant resort instead of a prison.

“There, that should fix it.” Miranza pulled her hands out of the wires, dusting bits of copper threading and fluff off her gloves. Theron let the casing drop closed with a loud clang before screwing the panel shut, his screwdriver making a soft whirring sound against the metal.

“Yeah, until the next time something decides to make its nest in there,” he commented. He handed the screwdriver to Miranza to tuck away in the tool kit and turned around, eyeing the horizon thoughtfully. “You know, I see a secluded little ridge over yonder that might make for a nice place to take a break.” The way he looked back at her and winked told her precisely what kind of ‘break’ he was thinking of taking.

She followed his gaze, spotting the ridge in question. There was snow on it.

“Are you kidding?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll freeze my ass off.”

He chuckled. “Hey, I’ll keep you warm. We can just toss a blanket down and – Hey, is that a camp set up over there?”

Tools put away, Miranza held one hand over her eyes to block out the late afternoon sun and squinted, trying to see what Theron was pointing at. Her eyesight wasn’t as good as his – he had implant enhancements, that was cheating – but she could dimly make out what appeared to be tents and maybe a few supply crates. The makeshift camp was set up below the ridge Theron had helpfully suggested earlier, and although she couldn’t be completely certain she thought it looked as though it was within the perimeter of Oriana’s property. The Jedi and her husband had agreements with the local prisoners: they traded with them, and she offered schooling to their children, and their children’s children. The prisoners weren’t supposed to be camping on their lands, however, and Miranza was fairly confident that Oriana or Felix would have mentioned something if they had granted permission for others to settle within range of the cottage. To the best of her knowledge, Khatera Suul and her teenage son were the only ones who had been granted the right, and _they_ certainly weren’t the ones setting up camp. Their cottage was in the complete opposite direction.

“You’re right, it does look like a camp,” she acknowledged, dropping her hand and moving towards their speeders. “Did Felix say anything to you about this?”

“Nope.” Theron gave her a grin, the kind of grin that warned her he was spoiling for a fight and this was the excitement he’d been looking for when they first left the cottage to check on the sensors. “Wanna check it out?”

Miranza sighed, weighing her options. They could call back to the cottage, but chances were Oriana and Felix had already left for Khatera’s place, and Qyzen wouldn’t want to leave Vector undefended (which Miranza wholeheartedly agreed with). She had dealt with the prisoners on Belsavis before and for the most part they were unorganized, poorly armed and armoured, and completely untrained. Besides that, this close to the cottage it was likely to be people who knew Oriana and Felix, people the couple had been helping and trading with, and it was just a misunderstanding that the camp was built on their property. After all, few people wanted to mess with a master Jedi, even one as reputably peaceful and compassionate as Oriana Zarasa.

“Well, we’re already out here,” she said thoughtfully, climbing aboard her speeder. “We might as well take a look.”

“That’s the spirit!”

She should’ve known better than to try to keep up with a man who used to race swoop-bikes for a living. The moment Theron hopped on his speeder he was off like a flash, hand on the throttle, practically leaving her in his dust. Miranza wasn’t slow by any means, but Theron was faster and far better at navigating the terrain, with the kind of razor-sharp reflexes she could only dream of.

The ridge and campsite were further away than she had originally estimated and Theron gained a significant lead on her. The trail they were following ran alongside a mountainous slope that led down into another valley, while mountain rose up on their opposite side, creating a fenced-in feeling that set Miranza on edge. Erosion was beginning to eat at the mountainside, and no doubt a few days of heavy rain or snow would be enough to remove all trace of the trail they were using. Up ahead, beyond Theron, Miranza could see the camp, which was little more than a couple of hastily-erected tents and an assortment of metal supply crates; she couldn’t see any sentients, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone there.

Theron was ahead of her by a wide margin and closing in on the edge of the camp when a sudden blaster shot cracked through the quiet afternoon.

The shot struck Theron with enough force to send him flying off his speeder. Miranza watched in horror as he went tumbling through the air and landed on the crumbling edge of the trail where his momentum carried him over the side. Theron’s speeder, suddenly unmanned, slowed down before coming to a complete stop, the safety features activated the moment Theron’s hand came away from the throttle. It bumped into a nearby tree trunk before toppling over onto its side and then slowly – almost comically so – plummeting over the side of the cliff. Miranza heard the speeder bounce down the mountain side and could picture almost every rock and tree branch that it struck before it finally stopped and burst into flames.

Miranza braked her speeder and quickly climbed off, leaving it idling in the middle of the trail. She hurried to the cliff edge, her heart in her throat and her blaster rifle in her hands. She crouched low, scanning the mountain ledges and the campsite for the source of the blaster fire, but she couldn’t see anyone; whoever had taken Theron out had gone to ground.

“Nexu One?” she said, speaking into her comm, moving towards the cliff. _Please be okay …_

Before she could get to the edge of the cliff and search for Theron, more of the ground gave way, rocks and stones crumbling out from underneath her. She leapt back, huddling close to the relative safety of the rocky wall behind her, eyes and ears scanning for any signs of life – whether from Theron or their attackers.

_“I’m okay, Two.”_ Theron’s voice crackled in her ear, the comm channel filled with static and a high-pitched whine that suggested his unit was damaged. _“Well, ‘okay’ is probably an exaggeration. I’m pretty sure my arm’s broken.”_ She heard a grunt, followed by a hiss of pain, and then, _“Yup, that’s definitely broken and honestly? Kinda gross. Think I might be sick. So, hey, if I throw up all over myself, would you mind telling Nexu Three that it was a very manly and dignified puke?”_

“Manly and dignified vomit, got it,” Miranza said quickly, her knees almost buckling with the intensity of her relief. He was hurt, but if he could make jokes it couldn’t be too bad.

_“Thanks, babe, you’re the best.”_

Alternating between terror and hilarity, Miranza crept towards the ledge again, but more rocks gave way before she was close enough to peer down, and Theron was quick to caution her to stay back. When he spoke she could only hear him in her earpiece, which told her he had fallen a fair ways down the side of the cliff. If she remembered correctly, however, the slope wasn’t dangerously steep, which meant with any luck he had mostly rolled down instead of simply plummeting straight to the next ledge. He was lucky his speeder had continued a bit further down the trail before falling over the edge, or it would have tumbled down after him and landed on him.

Miranza activated her comm again, intending to contact Qyzen – or Felix and Oriana – to let him know what had happened. She didn’t want the Trandoshan to leave Vector unattended, but if Theron was hurt and there was an unknown enemy (or enemies) out there then some backup would be appreciated. Her comm crackled on dead air and she frowned, hitting the button again. There was another high-pitched whine not unlike the one she had heard when Theron first contacted her; she had thought it meant his unit was broken, but perhaps that wasn’t the problem. Was someone jamming her signal? And if so, how was she able to contact Theron and not Qyzen? Something to sort out once she had Theron back, apparently – this was much more his area of expertise than hers.

_“Any sign of the shooter?”_ Miranza heard Theron make another grunt, and wished desperately that she could peer over the ledge to see what he was doing. Instead she focused on searching the area, trying to get a bead on whoever had shot him.

“No,” she said at last, shaking her head even though she knew Theron couldn’t see her.

_“Okay.”_ Theron sounded determined. _“Look, there’s a trail that leads back up to the road. It’s steep but I think I can make it. Keep looking for the shooter and I’ll meet up with you at the campsite.”_

“Are you going to be okay?”

_“Yeah, I think so.”_ She heard some static, and then Theron added, _“Not gonna lie, it’s a nasty fucking break. Think I might’ve dislocated my shoulder again, too, so that’s … great. On the plus side I don’t think I have a concussion, so … win?”_

Miranza snorted, rolling her eyes. The last thing Theron Shan needed was yet another concussion. She wasn’t surprised about his shoulder, though; he had dislocated the same shoulder (his left, she thought) numerous times, and frankly she was more surprised that it didn’t just randomly pop out of joint on its own, never mind as the result of him face-planting in the dirt. She wondered if there was anything Oriana could do to fix that, or if he would just need to face up to the fact that he was going to have to have it repaired surgically sooner or later.

“Be careful,” she whispered into her comm before creeping towards the campsite.

She was uncomfortably aware that there was an unknown sniper out there, and as she moved forwards, hunched over, keeping her profile small she felt as though she had a target painted between her shoulder blades. She wasn’t sure if it had been lack of skill on the shooter’s part or whether Theron’s reckless driving had made him a difficult target, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about any gaping blaster wounds so while she was certain he had been hit - she had _seen_ him go flying off his speeder - the bolt must have struck his armour. _She_ would have made that shot, but she would have been aiming for his head. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Up close, the campsite was as hastily-constructed as she had previously thought. There were just two tents that were little more than canvas tarps thrown over a flimsy metal frame, and the durasteel crates bore symbols indicating they had been stolen from Republic supplies. The crates were mostly empty, little more than discarded MRE wrappers and some bottles of water inside. There wasn’t even a fire pit. The afternoon sunlight was beginning to fade but Miranza thought she could make out some faint boot-prints in the dirt. She wasn’t much of a tracker and couldn’t tell where the boot-prints led once they left the camp.

Stepping back, she tilted her head up to get a look at the ridge Theron had pointed out earlier. It had the best vantage point around, which meant it was likely where the sniper had been lying in wait – but where were they now? She had been distracted by trying to find out whether or not Theron was still alive or badly injured, but she hadn’t been _that_ distracted and there wasn’t anywhere to go from the ridge except back down into the camp. The only route into the camp was the trail she had followed in, the same one she and Theron had been on.

Uncertain where else to look, Miranza headed towards where she thought Theron’s trail would bring him back up to the road, trying to spot him in the rapidly-growing darkness. She trusted in his ability to take care of himself – even while injured – but the image of him flying off his speeder and over the edge of the cliff kept playing itself over and over again in her mind, and the idea of him staggering up the side of a mountain with one broken arm was not a pleasant one.

Instincts honed by years in the field caused the hairs on the back of Miranza’s neck to stand up. She turned, spinning on her heel, blaster rifle at the ready –

Just in time for something very large to come out of stealth behind her. She had a fleeting glimpse of leathery grey skin and a gaping maw full of sharp, vicious-looking teeth – then a massive clawed fist connected with the side of her head and her world exploded into fiery pain – and then darkness.

O o O o O

Every time Theron glanced down at his left arm and saw the bizarre angle it bent at – right in the middle of his forearm, where there were no joints, right where it wasn’t supposed to bend – a small wave of nausea struck him and the thought _Yup, it’s broken_ went through his head on repeat. It wasn’t even the pain that bothered him, because strangely, his forearm wasn’t what really hurt, it was his shoulder, and even that hurt in a weird way, different from what he was accustomed to from a dislocated shoulder. No, it was the nauseatingly floppy way his arm moved that upset him, the wrongness of seeing his body moving in ways it was not meant to move. He was honestly afraid of what he would see when he took his jacket off and actually _looked_ at the injury instead of just using his sleeve as a makeshift sling to keep the limb immobilized as much as possible.

Despite his brave words to Miranza, getting himself back up the side of the mountain was proving more challenging than he’d expected. The path – if you could call it a path; it was really more of an animal track, overgrown and incredibly narrow – was steep, and there were times when he needed to pull himself up with his good hand, where it would have been far easier if he could have used both. There was no point in complaining, however (at least not out loud where someone could hear him), because neither he nor Miranza had thought to bring any rope and the only thing she could have done to help him would have been to lean over the edge of the cliff and play cheerleader.

Granted, if she put on one of those uniforms the Huttball cheerleaders wore, he might forget about how much his arm hurt.

Theron tried his comms a few times, intent on getting word out to Qyzen or Ori and Felix. At the very least he knew he was going to need Oriana’s help fixing his arm, and it’d be great if she could be waiting at the cottage when he and Miranza got back. But for whatever reason he was only able to reach Miranza – he thought it was because they used a different channel for Nexu team communications but he couldn’t be sure – and Miranza already knew exactly what was going on. Under different circumstances it might have been fun to flirt with her through the comms, but not when she was investigating a hostile camp and he was getting breathless climbing up the side of a mountain.

The toe of his boot snagged on an exposed root, and Theron went sprawling to the ground, landing hard on his left side and causing his entire world to white out for a few seconds as his entire left arm and shoulder erupted into agony. He rolled over onto his back, right hand clamped down hard to his left forearm as if to keep the limb from falling off, and stared up at the canopy of brightly-coloured trees overhead. He was surprised his litany of curses hadn’t earned him a concerned remark over the comms, but perhaps Miranza was trying to be stealthy. Getting back to his feet one-handed was a complicated process that had to be done in stages, and by the time he was moving forward again he was soaked in sweat and shaking.

When he finally reached the top of the hill Theron’s heart stopped. Miranza was sprawled facedown in the dirt – _dead? alive?_ Theron couldn’t tell – and three men in prisoner’s uniforms were standing over her. A few feet away stood something very large and very broad, and Theron had to blink a few times before his vision resolved and he recognized what had to be a Kintan crusher. He’d seen the near-sentient creatures before, mostly on Hutt worlds where they served as enforcers, but he hadn’t realized they were on Belsavis, too. This was one of the smaller ones he’d seen – eight feet tall rather than the size of an icetromper – but it looked just as dangerous as any of the others.

Theron weighed his options. He had a badly broken arm and a probably-dislocated shoulder, he was exhausted and his knees were shaking a little bit from making the climb up the mountain, and one of his blaster pistols had been lost when he’d taken the tumble from his speeder (not that he could use both of them, but still, insult to injury). And he was outnumbered four to one, which wasn’t exactly awesome odds even when he was at the top of his form. (The crusher might have counted as two, actually, and that worsened his odds.) On the plus side, neither the Kintan crusher nor the prisoners had noticed him, so he had the element of surprise working in his favour.

One of the men leaned down and grabbed the back of Miranza’s jacket, using it to haul her over onto her back.

Miranza was alive, and she came up shooting.

The moment Miranza was flipped over onto her back her eyes snapped open and the holdout blaster she’d been clutching to her chest started flashing. At that close range she barely needed to aim; she just pulled the trigger and sprayed blaster-fire all around her. Two of the men dropped dead before they even registered what was happening, and the third fell away screaming and clutching his wounded arm before she finished him off with a shot to the head. The Kintan crusher reacted the fastest, but it was completely oblivious to Theron’s presence and the moment Miranza started shooting he took aim at the massive creature and opened fire. Its leathery hide was thick and more than a few shots just glanced off, but Theron was an excellent marksman and at least two of his blaster bolts struck home in the crusher’s eyes. The thing toppled over, crashing into one of the tents, its body hitting the ground with a meaty thud.

A dozen witty remarks flashed through Theron’s mind but in the end he just jammed his pistol back in its holster and staggered towards the spot where Miranza lay. He would have dropped to his knees beside her and thrown his arms around her if it weren’t for the fact that there was no way his left arm was going to cooperate and if he went down on the ground he wasn’t sure he could get himself back up again. Instead he stood over her, breathing heavily and thanking the Force she wasn’t dead.

One of the dead prisoners had fallen over Miranza; she shoved him off, then rolled to one side and was neatly and quietly sick on the ground beside her.

“It’s okay,” Theron said, voice shaky, “I’ll tell Vector it was a manly and dignified puke.”

Miranza stared at him blankly, wiping at her mouth with the back of one hand. The entire right side of her face was caked with blood and Theron could see jagged claw marks down one cheek and along her neck. The cuts didn’t look to be terribly deep, but he knew from experience how badly head wounds tended to bleed.

“What happened to your arm?” she asked, pushing herself to her feet. She staggered a little, almost tripping over the man she’d pushed off of her, then managed to catch herself. She looked around, features twisting in confusion. “What are we doing out here?”

Theron blinked, catching her arm in his good hand and using it to turn her towards him. Up close the cuts on her face were ghastly, red jagged tears in her pale skin that even now were continuing to bleed sluggishly, and he couldn’t be certain but it looked to him as though one of her pupils was slightly larger than the other. He looked down at the ground where she’d fallen, wondering if she’d struck her head on a rock or if the Kintan crusher had simply hit her _that_ hard.

“What’s the last thing you remember happening, Miri?” he asked her carefully. She was still clutching her holdout blaster in a two-handed grip, but she didn’t try to pull away from him.

“We had breakfast with the others,” she replied, in the same careful tone he was using, as if she suspected the answer she was giving might not be correct, “and Qyzen asked if we would be willing to check on the proximity sensors.” She frowned, looking at him. “Theron, seriously, what happened to your arm? It looks broken.”

“That’s because it _is_ broken.” He let her go, then thought better of it, disliking how unsteady she was on her feet. If she face-planted he didn’t think he’d be able to get her back up again. He wrapped his good arm around her waist and began guiding her towards her speeder, hoping that between the two of them they would be able to pilot it back to the cottage. “Breakfast was hours ago, Miri. Come on, let’s get you back to the cottage so Ori can check on you.”

“You’re the one who needs a medic, Theron,” Miranza began, but then her legs crumpled and she sagged, stumbling against him. He hissed when their sudden collision jostled his arm but managed to keep her upright, tightening his hold on her waist. She made a small sound of dismay before pulling away from him so that she could double over, throwing up again into a nearby bush.

Once Miranza was more or less stable again Theron guided her towards her parked speeder. Her movements were uncoordinated and clumsy, and it took her three tries to get her leg up over the seat in order to sit down. He doubted his ability to both hold onto her and pilot the speeder back to the cottage, but he didn’t like the odds of her being able to sit behind him and stay on the seat. After a considerable amount of thought he unbuckled his belt and awkwardly pulled it off, earning himself an outrageous wink from his addled partner. He climbed onto the speeder in front of Miranza, then instructed her to wrap her arms around his waist. She did as she was told, giggling helplessly, her face pressed between his shoulder blades.

“I’m going to tie your wrists together so that you don’t let go of me, okay?” he said, suppressing another hiss of pain when her nose poked at a painful spot. He didn’t like the idea of restraining her – had their positions been reversed he would have found it slightly terrifying, no matter how much he trusted her – but he couldn’t think of any better way to get her back to the cottage in her present condition.

“Why would I let go of you?” The question was asked in a playful, almost flirtatious voice that would have set Theron’s mind at ease if it weren’t for the fact that Miranza’s words were slurring together. Her cheek was pressed against his back, no doubt leaving behind a smeared bloodstain, and her grip on his waist was loose. When he drew her wrists together in an awkward, one-handed grasp she was pliant and unresisting. He looped his belt around her wrists, catching one end in his teeth so he could pull it tight before making his best effort to tie it off. She could easily break free if she wanted to – or at least, she would be able to if she hadn’t had her brains scrambled – but hopefully it would be enough to keep her tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle off the back of the speeder.

Fortunately the speeder was designed with dominant right-handers in mind: the throttle was on the right-hand grip rather than the left or both, and he could activate it with minimal effort. The hard jerk of takeoff jostled his shoulder and arm rather painfully – and was in no way helped by Miranza’s head bumping against his shoulder with every motion – and it was difficult to steer one-handed, but he could manage it. Barely. When they first took off Theron tried to keep up a steady stream of idle chatter designed to keep Miranza’s attention focused on him, but the longer the ride took the harder it was for him to split his attention that much, and his speech quickly became punctuated with heart-felt cursing because every bump and dip and swerve sent jolts of pain slamming into him. By the time they were a little more than halfway back to the cottage Theron’s conversation had devolved into pained grunts and hisses, and Miranza was worryingly silent. When she started sagging back in the seat Theron was forced to stop the speeder and re-evaluate his options.

Miranza was out cold, and try as he might Theron was unable to rouse her. Through some incredibly awkward maneuvering he managed to unstrap her wrists and get her laid out on the ground, but at that point his energy was flagging. Her pulse and breathing were both steady, however, so he was able to keep his panicking to a bare minimum. He didn’t think he could get her back up onto the speeder. He didn’t think he could get _himself_ back up onto the speeder. His left arm was one intensely throbbing ache from his neck right down to the tips of his fingers, and with every beat of his pulse he felt a strong wave of nausea and a swell of heat that rippled through his arm. Theron sank down onto the ground beside Miranza, resting his back up against the speeder, and tried desperately to calm his racing mind down enough to think. He was exhausted and in pain, and he was starting to have trouble seeing, little black spots dancing around the periphery of his vision. After a moment of mindless panic he tried raising Qyzen, and then Felix and Oriana, on the comm channels but the signal was still having trouble getting through. In a fit of inspiration he tried Vector on the Team Nexu channel, and finally _that_ one worked.

Vector’s voice was groggy and rough, as if he’d been woken from a deep sleep. _“Theron? Is everything all right?”_ It was a mark of how out of sorts he was that he’d used Theron’s name, rather than referring to him as Nexu One over the channel.

“We ran into some complications,” Theron said, in what was likely the understatement of the year. He stared down at Miranza, lying pale and bloody and unconscious beside him, and forced himself to focus on her rather than the pain in his arm. Focus. _She needs me._ “Nexu Two is down. I tried – I tried bringing her back, but …” He swallowed, fighting down another wave of nausea. “ _Kriff._ I can’t raise …” He realized they didn’t have codenames for Qyzen, Felix or Oriana, and instead settled on, “Any of the others. We need an evac. We’re at …”

Theron blinked, trying to clear the fog from his vision. Where were they, in relation to the cottage? He couldn’t read the coordinates on his comm, and he was having trouble making sense of the feedback from his implants. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to get the words out, before passing out against the speeder.

O o O o O

Felix and Oriana were on their way, but Khatera Suul’s cottage was fifteen minutes away from their cottage by speeder, and Theron’s coordinates on Vector’s scanner were another ten minutes in the opposite direction. Vector couldn’t wait for them to ride to the rescue, not when Theron and Miranza were injured and in need of him. Qyzen offered up only a token resistance before dragging out the large medkit and helping Vector into the speeder cab. Vector kept his eyes fixed on the scanner, on the little flashing dot that marked Theron’s location, and trusted in Qyzen to get them both there safely while he offered up directions. His heart was racing in his chest the entire trip.

It was easy to spot Theron’s speeder; Vector didn’t need the comm scanner for that. Harder to spot were Theron and Miranza, and as Qyzen drove them up to the speeder Vector’s entire world seemed to slow down to a near-stop until they rounded the corner and he saw his two lovers sprawled side by side on the ground. Qyzen had barely stopped the speeder before Vector was leaping out, completely heedless of his earlier exhaustion and the dull, by-now-familiar ache of his right arm.

Theron was conscious, but just barely, slumped over on his side and blinking groggily up at the sky overhead. Miranza was laid out on her side, one hand cupping her cheek, and at first glance Vector thought she looked like she was sleeping peacefully until he saw the claw marks and blood on her face. For one terrifying moment he thought she was dead, but as he got closer he could see the gentle rise and fall of her sides as she breathed. Her colour was bad, though, and he was unable to wake her up. While Vector quickly assessed his partners’ conditions Qyzen hopped down from the speeder carrying a pair of backboards tucked under one arm and the medkit in his opposite hand.

The Trandoshan made a dismissive _tsk_ -ing sound when Vector moved to assist him, glaring pointedly at the Joiner’s still-bandaged hand. Oriana had made a significant amount of headway in repairing Vector’s badly broken hands, but he still didn’t have full range of motion with his right and he was at the risk of hurting himself if he pushed too far. Qyzen appeared to know what he was doing, however, and was more than strong enough to be able to lift gently lift Miranza and get her situated on one of the backboards before carrying her over to the cab. While Qyzen dealt with Miranza Vector made himself useful by reassuring Theron, who was struggling to resume full consciousness.

There was something tremendously wrong with Theron’s left arm, but Vector couldn’t tell much beyond the fact that it was clearly broken without getting him out of his jacket, and he didn’t want to do that until they were back at the cottage. Everything about the way Theron held himself looked off, however: he held his shoulder slightly hunched, his arm cradled close to his chest as if to protect it, and Vector could see that his forearm was bent where it ought not to bend. He had a few minor scrapes and bruises, but the broken arm seemed to be the worst of his injuries although Vector was concerned by Theron’s apparent efforts to remain conscious.

“’S’Miri a’ight?” Theron mumbled, hazel eyes blinking up at Vector in confusion and worry. He closed his eyes for a moment, then when he opened them his gaze was a bit more focused – and vaguely apologetic. “Dislocated my shoulder again.”

Vector patted him awkwardly on his good shoulder, letting his hand linger. “Qyzen is seeing to her.” He didn’t want to lie and tell Theron Miranza was fine, but nor did he wish to worry him by admitting that she wasn’t, or that he simply didn’t know. She’d seemed terribly still and small when Qyzen was getting her onto the backboard, and aside from the ghastly slashes across her face there was no telling what other injuries she might have. But there was no point in sharing this with Theron, not when the other man was a breath away from passing out again.

Qyzen stood over them, second backboard in hand. “Does soft thing need carrying?”

Theron shook his head, letting out a small hiss of pain when the movement jostled his injured arm. He gave Vector a plaintive look. “No, I can walk. Just … help me up?”

Trusting in Theron’s self-assessment – and knowing all too well how frustrating it was to feel this measure of helplessness – Vector held out his good hand, letting Theron clasp him by the arm so that he could help pull the other man to his feet. Theron was somewhat shaky but once he was upright he stayed upright, although he was content to let Vector sling an arm around his waist to ensure his footing. Qyzen made a strange half-hiss, half-clicking sound that Vector took for approval and collected the medkit, and the three of them headed over to the cab where Miranza was already laid out in the back.

Felix and Oriana were already at the cottage by the time the four of them made their way back, and Felix was out the door before their speeder had even landed, giving Theron a hand down and then helping Qyzen unload Miranza. Miranza was beginning to stir, grogginess giving way to panic when she awakened to find herself strapped down to the backboard to prevent her from tumbling off, and it took both Theron and Vector to calm her down. She was very confused about where she was and what had happened, and kept insisting that she was _fine,_ that Theron was the one who was hurt. Oriana insisted on tending to Miranza first, in spite of Miranza’s protestations, and after some rapid back and forth Miranza was carried into the master bedroom while Vector helped Theron to the kitchen table to get started on treating his arm.

“This would be easier if we could cut your jacket off,” Vector said quietly, once Theron was seated in front of him. Theron glared at him, small lines forming around his mouth and eyes as he tried to hold back the pain that Vector could read clearly in his aura. Vector wanted to tell his lover that he didn’t need to be brave, that he already knew how strong Theron was, but he knew what this felt like, too. And Theron was ridiculously fond of that red jacket.

Vector sighed heavily and nodded. “This will hurt.” Theron returned the nod, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly as Vector carefully drew the sleeve of his jacket down over the broken bones. There was a scorch mark up near the collar, what looked like blaster burns that hadn’t been there when Theron and Miranza had left to check on the proximity sensors. As Vector drew the jacket away – Theron grabbing hard at the armrest of his chair and making an animalistic keening sound – the extent of the damage became visible, and it was Vector’s turn to breathe deeply.

Both the ulna and the radius were fractured, explaining the bent shape of Theron’s arm. Vector could never remember which bone was which, but one of them had torn through the skin and was protruding at an odd angle, the jagged bone ends jutting up almost obscenely through Theron’s tanned flesh. His arm was caked in blood but the flow had stopped, although removing the jacket had worried at it enough that there was a sluggish bit of bleeding around the open wound. The forearm wasn’t the only problem, however: there, aligning perfectly with where the scorch marks were on Theron’s jacket, was a rather nasty bruise – and a collarbone that was quite obviously broken as well. From the looks of things the bone had been broken by the impact from some sort of blaster shot, which Vector supposed was _marginally_ preferable to being shot full of holes, all things considered.

“Your shoulder isn’t dislocated, love,” Vector murmured, gently helping Theron lay his arm out on the table with some towels underneath for padding. “You’ve broken your collarbone.”

“Really? Huh, that’s new.” Theron glanced down at his arm – and Vector saw all the blood suddenly drain from his face as his eyes took in the protruding piece of bone and the jagged wound around it. Vector had enough time to catch Theron before he fell out of his chair, the other man going limp against him. Theron was by no means squeamish, but Vector imagined there was a limit to the horrible things one could see happening to their body, and bones jutting out had to rank fairly highly.

“By the Force, you lot seem determined to give me plenty of work to do!” Oriana exclaimed, as she and Felix raced over to assist Vector with Theron. He was beginning to come to already, looking flustered and embarrassed at having fainted. She spent a few seconds clucking over Theron before sending her husband to retrieve a basin with warm water and an assortment of rags, and while Felix was collecting what was needed she turned and gave Vector a long, assessing look.

“Your wife has a bad concussion,” she said gently, turning her attention back to Theron’s arm. “The marks on her face will heal, but we’ll need to keep an eye out for infection – she wasn’t able to tell me what hit her. She doesn’t remember what happened.”

“Kintan crusher,” Theron supplied, steadfastly avoiding looking at his arm or at whatever Oriana was doing to it. “One of your neighbours was keeping it as a pet. We were investigating a camp that was set up on your property, and somebody – or several somebodies – took offense. Shot me off my speeder and sicced their oversized puppy on Miranza.”

Qyzen, standing behind Vector, made a soft disapproving sound. “ _Tcha._ Will take Herald’s mate and investigate camp.”

“I think they’re all dead,” Theron said, and Qyzen clicked at him.

“Is no matter,” the Trandoshan said. “Dead is warning.” He turned to Felix, who had returned with the requested supplies and was already in the process of gearing up, and nodded towards the door. “If not dead, will be dead soon.”

Qyzen clapped Vector on the shoulder, hard enough to send him reeling. “Stay. Guard Herald and mates. Will return with trophies.”

Vector exchanged wary glances with Theron, then nodded hesitantly. “Trophies will not be necessary, but we do appreciate the gesture.” Seeing the hard set of Theron’s jaw as the other man tried and failed not to wince at Oriana’s prodding, Vector added with grim satisfaction, “Happy hunting.”

As Felix and Qyzen departed Oriana gave Vector a sympathetic look, and motioned with one hand towards the open bedroom door. Her other hand was on Theron’s wrist, checking the pulse, and Vector could see a faint golden glow beginning to spread from her fingertips across Theron’s skin.

“Go,” she said, her attention focused on her patient, “Sit with your wife. I’ll send in Patient Number Three once I’m done with him.”

_We suppose that makes us Patient Number One,_ Vector thought, smiling faintly. He bent and kissed Theron on the forehead, brushing his lips lightly over one of the many small cuts and bruises that decorated the other man’s face.

Miranza was sleeping peacefully when Vector joined her, curled up on her side on the bed. And it _was_ sleep; Vector could tell by the soft violets in her aura, which had been shot through with darker indigos and blacks when he and Qyzen had first reached her and Theron. The nasty slashes on her face had been cleaned up, the blood and dirt washed away, and Oriana had clearly used some of her Force-healing to reduce the worst of the damage. In all likelihood Vector suspected the cuts would not scar at all, which relieved him somewhat because he knew Miranza would have been troubled by the scarring. She might not be with Imperial Intelligence any longer, but the spy in her would have fretted about such identifying marks.

She woke a little when Vector crawled into bed beside her, eyelashes fluttering as a small smile spread across her face. The process of being healed through the Force was exhausting both for the healer and for the recipient, and Vector was still exhausted from the work Oriana had done on him earlier. No doubt Miranza was just as tired – more so, perhaps, given that _he_ hadn’t needed to fight off monsters and prisoners. He thought he would quite like to hear the full story from Theron – and that Miranza might be curious to know it as well, since she had no memory of the incident – but it could wait until they’d all had about a day’s worth of sleep. Or a month’s, perhaps. He felt as though he could sleep for a year, at the very least.

Vector was half-dozing by the time Theron joined them, Miranza cuddled in close by his side, his good arm wrapped around her waist to draw her in. He watched through partially closed eyelids as Theron removed his brand-new sling and his shirt and climbed into bed on Vector’s other side.

“Ori’s gonna come and check on Miranza every hour or so,” Theron whispered, breath warm against Vector’s neck. “We’re under orders to stay in bed until she says otherwise.”

“Quite the slave-driver, that one,” Vector mused, earning himself a small huff of laughter from Theron. “But we think we can manage to obey.”

“Mmphm.” Theron wriggled until he was pressed against Vector’s back. “How’s your arm?”

“Sore. But healing.” Vector let his eyes drift closed again. “Yours?”

“Same.” Theron let out an amused snort. “I wasn’t the one with the concussion this time.”

If Vector could have rolled his eyes he would have. Instead he just chuckled softly and let relief wash over him, that Theron and Miranza were safe – for the time being, until the next crisis happened – and there with him. It wasn’t long before exhaustion and comfort won out, and he fell asleep, nestled between the two people he loved most in the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Here It Goes Again" is by OK-Go


	26. Well Worth the Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short bit of schmoopy self-indulgent fluff to mourn the passing of one of my favourite musicians.

_**Belsavis, Four Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

She heard it the moment she stepped out of the ‘fresher, drawing the towel away from her wet hair as she tried to zero in on the sound. Music, faint and unfamiliar, coming from somewhere in the cottage. Miranza frowned, lifting her head. The music stopped, then started again, the same chord coming to a faltering, stuttering stop. It sounded like someone was playing a guitar, or perhaps listening to one on the portable music player, but it was no song she recognized. The music stopped again and she heard a soft male voice raised in encouragement, and then a ripple of embarrassed masculine laughter.

Their hosts had left for the day, gone to the school Oriana had established, leaving the cottage to their infirm guests. “Infirm” was perhaps no longer the appropriate word: Miranza was fully recovered from her concussion, and both Theron and Vector were well on the mend. Miranza had spent the bulk of her time in the shower considering whether or not the boys were healed enough for them to return to the field; Lana wasn’t complaining, but Miranza knew the Sith lord had to be getting anxious. There was so much to do, still, before they could rescue the Outlander. They couldn’t afford to stay on Belsavis much longer. Emperor Arcann’s grip was tightening on the galaxy. The Eternal Empire wasn’t going to stop just so that the three of them could lick their wounds.

Much as they had needed to.

Miranza combed through the wet tangles of her hair before tying it off into a sloppy knot and hastily donning the change of clothes she’d brought into the ‘fresher with her, an old worn T-shirt of Vector’s and a pair of boxer shorts she’d stolen from Theron’s stash. Outside of underwear she couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn something of her own; the boys’ clothing was much more comfortable. And it smelled like them, faintly, under the flowery scent of the laundry detergent Oriana favoured. The three of them rarely had need to leave the cottage, and neither Felix nor Oriana stood on ceremony in their home. Well-worn, comfortable clothing was the norm, and while Miranza certainly had her own share of ratty tees and sleep-pants, she much preferred wearing Theron’s and Vector’s.

She slipped through the cottage on silent bare feet, heading towards where the faint strumming seemed to be coming from. The music had started up again and as she got closer she could tell for certain that someone – either Vector or Theron, since Felix and Oriana were both absent – was working their way through chords on a guitar. The playing was stilted, with lots of starts and stops and the occasional muffled curse or huff of frustration. She recognized Vector’s voice and her heart gave a small pang; she hadn’t known he could play guitar, and with his hand …

Miranza herself was painfully and intimately aware of how fragile the human hand was. The torture she’d experienced on Alderaan had been somewhat different from what Vector had gone through, but both had involved hammers and the crushing of delicate bones. It had felt like a lifetime before she had recovered from what Alric Ulgo had done to her, and even now, years later, she still had to perform hand exercises to ensure continued mobility. The damage to Vector’s hand had not been as severe as what she had suffered, but it was bad enough, even with the blessing that was Oriana’s Force-healing. She hadn’t realized he had regained enough fine motor control to be able to strum a guitar. The discovery was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she brushed them away with an impatient hand.

She didn’t know what possessed her to sneak, but there was something intensely intimate about the soft, hesitant music coming from the back of the cottage that made her want to preserve the sanctity of the moment. Stealthiness had been ingrained in her since childhood, and while both Vector and Theron had the means to detect her - Vector with his Killik-enhanced senses and Theron with proximity sensors in his implants, if he had activated them - she was cautious to stay just out of range. She wanted to observe them both unseen, to take in this private, intimate moment without them knowing she was there. She didn’t want to interrupt them, but rather wanted to watch and commit this scene to memory. She crept forward, sticking to the shadows, bare feet padding silently across the hardwood floor until she reached the end of the hall and could see into the back room.

Vector and Theron sat side-by-side on the floor, a guitar on Vector’s lap and a datapad on Theron’s. It took Miranza a moment to realize Theron’s datapad had the sheet music for whatever song Vector was trying to play; Theron held it at the perfect angle for Vector to see. The two men were framed by the large picture window behind them, golden sunlight filtering in through the lacy curtains, filling the small room. Vector’s head was bent, a frown tugging at his lips as he struggled to position his fingers properly. Theron, in turn, just watched him and made encouraging sounds, and after a few seconds Vector began to play again. Miranza didn’t know the song, but it sounded mournful and introspective.

“We’re a bit rusty,” Vector apologized, ducking his head as his finger slipped on the string and made a harsh squealing sound.

“You’re doing good,” Theron replied. He held his hands out, taking the guitar from Vector. “Here – can I just …?” He made some adjustments to the key, his own fingers quick and deft. If he had any lingering pain or stiffness from his broken arm and collarbone, Miranza couldn’t see it in the way he moved or held the guitar. He strummed a few chords before handing the guitar back to Vector. “There, that should be better.”

Vector nodded, settling the musical instrument on his lap and taking a few seconds to reposition his hands. The fingers of his right hand were stiff and he needed Theron to help him position them properly, but once they were in place he began to play again, slow and hesitant. After a moment he lifted his head to look at Theron, a beseeching expression on his face.

“You promised,” Vector said softly.

Theron nodded, scrubbing a hand through his short dark hair, making it stand up even more than usual. Miranza thought she could detect a faint blush on his cheeks as he shuffled in place, looking embarrassed.

“All right, all right,” he agreed, clearing his throat. “Just … From the beginning, okay?”

Vector nodded again and began to play, and after about ten seconds in Theron started singing, his voice soft and a little uncertain. Miranza had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping out loud at the sound.

_“Does your mother tell you things … long, long when I’m gone?”_ Theron sang, his quiet baritone gaining strength as Vector continued playing the guitar. _“Who you talking to? Is she telling you I’m the one? It’s a grave mistake … and I’m wide awake …”_ He coughed, covering his mouth with his fist, and made another throat-clearing sound before singing again.

Miranza leaned back against the wall, hand pressed down hard over her mouth. She didn’t know the song – it had a faintly Republic sound to it, but she didn’t know if that was because Theron was the one singing or because she had some vague familiarity with common Republic music styles. She remembered studying music at the academy; it had been important to understand the art and culture of their enemy. She thought, had she grown up in Republic space instead of in the Empire, she might have been a fan. Theron’s singing was soft and mournful, and he didn’t need to glance down at the datapad to know the words; this was a song he knew well. His gaze was on Vector’s face, the fingers of one hand tapping idly in a steady beat against his thigh.

_“It’s been a long time running,”_ Theron sang, smiling faintly, and Miranza could hear that smile in his voice. _“It’s been a long time coming.”_

Vector’s hand slipped a little, but the two of them managed to play through it, Theron shaking his head at the Joiner’s whispered _“Sorry”_ even as he kept singing. The sunlight pouring in through the window spilled over the two of them, casting them both in a golden light. Heads bent together, Theron’s knee pressed casually to Vector’s thigh, the datapad shifting so Vector had a better view. When the chorus came around a second time Vector joined in, his gentle tenor harmonizing with Theron’s stronger baritone, their voices lifting to fill the small room.

Miranza had known they could both sing. Often enough she’d caught one or both of them humming or singing along to something on the radio, or singing the chorus of whatever song was caught in their heads. Sometimes, if she knew the song, she joined in, but more often than not she was happy enough just to listen in. She’d had no idea either of them could play any instruments, however – it wasn’t as though their lives lent them much time for that kind of frivolity, and there were no instruments on the _Mercurial._ If Theron had had a guitar back on Coruscant he hadn’t brought it with him when he’d left the Republic, and Miranza knew for a fact Vector hadn’t brought any instruments with him from Alderaan. She wondered how it was possible that in all this time she’d never heard either of them play, how something this beautiful and wonderful could have been absent from her life for so long. She made a mental note to ask Lana to look into procuring a guitar for them to keep on board the ship; now that she knew they both could play, she had no intentions of missing out again.

_“It’s been a long time running,”_ the two men sang together, Vector’s fingers sliding easily over the strings, Theron’s hand tapping out the beat. _“It’s been a long time coming. It’s been a long, long, long time running …”_

Theron reached out a hand, curving his fingers along the edge of Vector’s jaw as he sang, _“It’s well worth the wait.”_ Vector smiled, ducking his head so that strands of dark hair fell in his face, hiding the blush Miranza could see spreading across his cheeks. He played the last few chords before Theron leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips, and when the two men pulled apart Miranza could see faint traces of tears on their cheeks. They matched the tears on her own face.

Something dark and heavy that had been nestling in her heart for the past few weeks seemed to lift and ease away, and for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime Miranza felt peace and certainty. As much as she would have loved to stay on Belsavis forever, it was time. They were ready.

It had been a long time coming, but stars, it was well worth the wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Tuesday, October 17th, Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, lost his battle to cancer. The music of the Hip has been with me for pretty much my entire life and even though I knew his death was coming it still hit me hard. This chapter is dedicated to him and to the Tragically Hip.
> 
> The song Vector and Theron play together is "Long Time Running" by the Tragically Hip.


	27. Midnight City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Barrazhat go shopping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jumping forward a bit in time. I might come back and write about what happens between the last chapter and now, but for now I go where my muse takes me.

_**Asylum, Unknown Regions (Wild Space), Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“I’m beginning to get the distinct impression that half of these items are made up, and we’ve been sent on a wild convor chase just to get us out of the house.”

Theron grinned to himself at the obvious disdain and frustration in Barrazhat’s voice, his eyes focused on the table in front of him, skimming over the various items on display. Behind the table, a trader with beady eyes and a considerable amount of scruff glanced between Theron and the large Pureblood bounty hunter, his expression wary. Theron couldn’t decide if the man was concerned he and Barrazhat were planning to steal from him, or if he simply hadn’t seen a Pureblood before. Asylum was more diverse than Zakuul, but in Theron’s experience the red-skinned Sith did not venture far from Imperial space. Barrazhat Vyziari was something of an exception to that rule.

None of the items on the trader’s table matched the list Lana Beniko had given the two of them, and Theron was inclined to agree with Barrazhat’s assessment. They’d been scrounging around the shadowport for the better part of two hours searching for everything on Lana’s shopping list, and so far they’d only managed to locate slightly less than half the things the Sith lord wanted. Not that Theron could blame Lana if she _did_ want to keep him and the bounty hunter out from underfoot: in a little more than a week and a half they would finally be making the push to rescue the Outlander from his carbonite prison, and everyone on their team was getting more than a little antsy.

Theron was definitely guilty of being restless and anxious. The plan was finally coming together. Everything he and the others had been working towards was about to come to fruition, and there was no way for him to tamp down the excitement and nervousness that coiled around inside him every time he thought about it. Even the recent discovery that Micah Savarr – the Outlander’s twin brother, who had alerted Theron to his belief that Caedan was still alive – had been tossed in a Republic prison wasn’t enough to dim Theron’s excitement.

 _That_ was definitely a setback, however. The original plan had called for Micah to pilot the getaway vehicle, along with a Zakuulan defector Lana had met a few years ago. With Micah in prison – on trumped-up charges that had more to do with the fact that his crusade to rescue his brother was threatening the tenuous peace with Zakuul than to do with any actual illegal exploits on his part – Koth Vortena was the sole pilot. Koth was a good man; Theron liked him, and his piloting skills were exceptional, but the plan had called for two ships. Theron could handle the second, it just meant they needed to sort some things out. Fortunately ex-chancellor Saresh had nabbed Micah a week ago, instead of now or a week later – they had time to figure out a workaround.

Leaving Micah in prison wasn’t a part of the plan, either, but Coruscant was a long ways away from Asylum and Zakuul, and so arranging for a jailbreak was going to have to wait. Between Theron’s knowledge and skills and Miranza’s infiltration expertise it shouldn’t be that difficult, even with the Zakuulan blockades. But that was a plan for another day. For now, they had to prepare for rescuing the Outlander. Theron was confident Micah would understand, since it was his brother they would be rescuing. _Finally._

 _Caedan Savarr._ Theron could picture the man clearly in his mind, having met him on Ziost and having practically memorized his file in preparation for rescuing him. He and Micah were twins, identical in appearance if not necessarily in genetics. Theron still didn’t know whether Micah and Caedan were identical or fraternal twins; it was, he supposed, entirely possible for one twin to be Force-sensitive and the other Force-blind, even if they were identical – the Force worked in mysterious ways. Caedan was tall and athletic and handsome, with tanned skin, close-cropped auburn hair and the brightest green eyes Theron had ever seen. The last time he had seen the man, Caedan had had a neatly-trimmed goatee and sideburns, but in the pictures Emperor Arcann had shown when boasting of Caedan’s capture the Outlander had been clean-shaven, making the scar that ran across his face stand out in sharp contrast. Theron knew from Caedan’s file that the scar was a reminder of his stay with the former Sith Emperor; Caedan made no effort to hide it, but he didn’t talk about it, either.

Granted, Ziost had been crazy enough that Theron and Caedan hadn’t talked all that much, period. They’d flirted, though – or at least Theron was pretty sure they’d been flirting – and if things had been different, well … who knows where that might have gone?

“Let’s take a break.” Barrazhat’s deep, accented voice cut into Theron’s thoughts, and he glanced up to see the Pureblood scowling down at the datapad where Lana’s list was stored. Barrazhat met his gaze, orange-yellow eyes narrowing. “We’re getting nowhere with this list, and I’m starving. I saw a roast gorak stand on the way over here – I say we grab a bite to eat and regroup.”

“Sounds good to me,” Theron agreed, dropping a handful of recycled power cells down onto the table where he’d found them. Behind the table the trader rolled his eyes and sighed heavily but made no comment, no doubt too intimidated by Barrazhat’s sheer bulk to be outwardly offended by the two lollygaggers who had idled over his stall but were apparently uninterested in making purchases. Even outside of his Mandalorian armour Barrazhat was a large and imposing man, and as cosmopolitan as Asylum was there were still a number of people who gawked at his facial tendrils and glimmering piercings. The cross-shaped scar across his face and his perpetual scowl did little to make him appear more welcoming.

Theron was becoming rather fond of Asylum. He’d been to more than a few shadowports in his time, and this one, on the far reaches of Wild Space, was arguably one of the most interesting. Zakuulan culture and customs were starting to become more recognizable in Republic and Imperial space, but on Asylum it was the other way around: Zakuul was the norm, and Republic and Imperial trappings were beginning to work their way in as refugees from all three worlds collided in one supposedly safe haven. Asylum was seedy and dangerous, just like every other shadowport Theron had ever been to, but there was an underpinning current of hope and excitement that lent the place a more upbeat and less sinister air. Port Nowhere was a dive, Nar Shaddaa was a neon-soaked hell, but Asylum was a place filled with possibilities, and in another time and age a man like Theron – with his skills and his connections – could live like a king.

After some deliberation Theron and Barrazhat chose to bypass the gorak stand, opting instead for a stall that sold savoury sausages on a bun and ice-cold beer, and they carried their purchases over to a small bench where they could sit and enjoy their impromptu snack. Just as Theron had taken the first bite of his sausage his holocomm chimed. Swallowing hastily and wiping grease from his lips, he pulled the comm out of his jacket and held it out.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he said as he and Barrazhat were greeted by Miranza’s holographic image.

 _“Hey yourself,”_ she replied, smiling at him through the projection. _“What’s your progress?”_

“Well,” Theron began, before Barrazhat could launch into a litany of complaints, “We’re starting to suspect this was a clever ruse to get us out of the house. We’ve got maybe” – a quick mental count – “half the items Lana requested.”

“ _Barely_ half,” Barrazhat grumbled beside him, around a mouthful of sausage.

“The rest of these things don’t appear to exist here on Asylum,” Theron continued, darting a glance in the Pureblood’s direction. “We’re taking a break to refuel before resuming our search. Did you need anything while we’re out?”

Miranza shook her head, looking amused. _“No, we’re fine here, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Koth commed us. He’s got a lead on a ship we can use.”_

“That’s good news, at least.” Theron took a bite of his sausage, chewing methodically. The original plan had involved Micah’s ship and the _Mercurial,_ but with Micah benched and his ship impounded in Republic space they were having to improvise. Koth had said he thought he could get his hands on another vessel; if that lead actually panned out they’d be steps ahead. He swallowed before continuing, “We’ve got a few more places we can check, but if we haven’t found the rest of this stuff in the next hour or so I’m calling it. If Lana really does need all this junk we might have to look elsewhere.”

 _“That sounds good,”_ Miranza said. She turned and glanced at someone or something off-screen, nodding at whoever it was before turning back to the commlink. _“If you can find anywhere that sells nerf-steaks I’ll grill some up for dinner tonight. Deal?”_

“Deal,” Theron agreed, blowing a kiss into the comm while Barrazhat made gagging sounds beside him. He ended the call and rolled his eyes at the bounty hunter, finishing his sausage in silence.

“Have I mentioned lately how completely insufferable you two are?” Barrazhat asked, balling up the sausage wrapper and tossing it in a nearby garbage receptacle without even glancing in its direction. The wadded-up ball of paper landed in the receptacle but bounced off some garbage inside and rolled out onto the ground before getting picked up by an errant breeze. Barrazhat paid it no heed, instead standing and wiping his hands off on his pants. “You _three,_ actually. You’re disgusting, all lovey-dovey heart-eyes and kissy-faces. Get a room.”

“What?” Theron glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes before taking another look at the list on the datapad. They might be able to get the fuel cells Lana wanted at a vendor down the way, although the price was likely three times as much as Theron wanted to pay for them. Still, that’d be one more thing off the damned list. “You and Rekka not into public displays of affection?”

Barrazhat snorted. “We’ve been married twenty years, _vod._ We can keep our hands to ourselves in public.”

Theron chuckled but didn’t bother to reply. Considering how his relationship with Miranza and Vector had started out – weeks of flirting followed by a surreptitious fuck in a tent on Yavin 4 before the truce ended – it was rather nice not to feel as though they had to keep themselves hidden. Nobody on Asylum knew who Theron Shan was, or cared that he used to be the poster boy for Republic Intelligence, or that his parents were high-ranking Republic citizens. Nobody cared that Miranza Gerrick was a former Imperial spy, or that Vector Hyllus was a diplomat – and a Killik Joiner. On Asylum, out in Wild Space, they could just be Theron and Miranza and Vector, and if that meant Theron could make ‘kissy faces,’ as Barrazhat called it, at his lover over the comm then dammit, that was what Theron was going to do.

Still chuckling, Theron made his way towards the side alley that would take them to another street and vendors they hadn’t yet had time to check out. As he reached the mouth of the alleyway something caught his attention, and Theron felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He kept moving, but gave a quick glance around, trying to see what had attracted his notice. Beside him he saw Barrazhat doing the same, the large bounty hunter doing a credible impression of stretching and looking around casually.

Barrazhat’s hands moved, fingers flashing in the simplistic sign language he and his wife used. _Watchers._

 _Where?_ Theron signed back, grateful for the lessons Rekka had been giving him. While it was difficult to make the movements seem casual, it was doubtful that any observers would be able to understand what he and Barrazhat were saying to each other. Theron still didn’t know if the sign language was Mandalorian in nature – most Mandos he knew were incredibly reluctant to share their language with outsiders – or something that Rekka and Barrazhat had devised on their own, but it was a safe bet no one else on Asylum spoke it.

A shrug from Barrazhat was the only answer. Theron glanced around again but could see no sign of anyone watching them. The market was busy, but not so busy that someone paying an unusual amount of attention to them wouldn’t stand out.

Now that he’d noticed it, though, Theron couldn’t shake the feeling that he and Barrazhat were being observed. He considered abandoning their shopping trip and heading home, but if they _were_ being watched he didn’t want to lead anyone back to their safe house. There were a few cantinas they could duck into, but none that he knew well enough to know whether there were other exits they could use or if their observers would just be sitting outside waiting for them once they left.

It could be nothing. It could be something perfectly innocent. The market was a big place; there were a lot of reasons people could be there, and people-watching was definitely one such possibility. But Theron hadn’t survived as a spy for as long as he had by ignoring his instincts.

Theron was about to turn away from the alley and head back into the main market area when he caught the faint sound of sobbing. Frowning, he tilted his head back and forth, trying to discern where the noise had come from; beside him, Barrazhat did the same. They pinpointed the source at the same time: there, on a stoop just a few feet into the alley, sat a small human child, skinny arms wrapped around equally skinny legs. Even at their distance it was possible for Theron to see why the child was crying, as their trousers were torn open just below the knee, revealing a rather nasty-looking gash and a not-insignificant amount of blood.

 _It could be a trap,_ Theron thought, and saw the same thought expressed on Barrazhat’s face. It _could_ be a trap, but … It was a kid. A little kid, alone and injured.

“Kriff it,” Theron muttered under his breath, and headed towards the child.

As soon as he moved into the alleyway the kid looked up at him and scooted back, trying to duck in behind one of the garbage dumpsters that contained the refuse from a nearby restaurant. The sobbing intensified, coupled with that strange little hiccupping sound kids made when they were trying their hardest not to cry.

“C’mon, kid,” Theron called, hunkering down in an effort to make himself seem less frightening and intimidating. Barrazhat, still close beside him, was trying to do the same, which – given that he was a massive red-skinned brute with long facial tendrils and a wicked cross-shaped scar across his face – wasn’t terribly successful although it was comical enough that Theron had to suppress a snicker at the sight. Barrazhat shot him a dirty look but made no comment, choosing instead to focus on the small child ahead of them.

Theron eased in around the dumpster, resolutely ignoring the smell of rotten food that permeated the air around him. The child scooted back further, wiping one small hand across their face, and stared up at Theron with wide blue eyes. There was a smudge of dirt across the bridge of the kid’s nose and their face was red and streaked with tears. Closer now Theron could see that the cut on the child’s leg looked pretty serious and would almost certainly require stitches. He couldn’t smell the blood over the stench of rot and decay from the dumpster, but the kid’s pants leg was stained dark red with it. There was no blood on the ground, however, and Theron wondered how long the child had been sitting there crying, and where they had been when they had hurt themselves. It looked like a _lot_ of blood.

“Hey,” Theron said softly, holding out one hand. “C’mon out. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The kid stood, sniffling loudly, and raised their hand. At first Theron thought the child was reaching out to accept his grip, but instead the kid’s hand stopped at chest height – and the image flickered, changing from that of a small, tear-stained child to a figure closer to Theron’s height wearing mismatched heavy armour.

“Sweet,” said the figure, their voice so heavily modulated that it sounded robotic. “Sorry I can’t say the same.”

Theron’s hand was dropping to his blaster when the person in front of him suddenly brought their hand up in front of them. There was an audible click and then red lightning tore through Theron’s head and his vision whited out. The pain was intense – similar, in fact, to what he’d felt when he had accidentally tripped the slicer’s trap, months ago – and his knees buckled. When his eyes cleared he found himself lying on the ground, two more armoured figures standing over him. His blaster – which he couldn’t remember pulling out – was discarded on the ground a few inches away from his face. He reached out, trying to grab the blaster, and a booted foot came down hard on his wrist, pinning his hand to the ground. The weight on his wrist shifted as another heavy boot slammed into his side, knocking the breath from his lungs.

“Hey!” It was the first person, their strangely-modulated voice filled with anger and annoyance. “Don’t damage the goods!”

 _Goods?_ Theron thought, struggling to breathe through the fire in his side and reaching out his free hand to try and grab hold of his blaster. Somewhere back towards the mouth of the alley he thought he could hear Barrazhat cursing in Mando'a but he couldn’t shift around enough to see what was happening to the bounty hunter. His fingers glanced along the barrel of his pistol but couldn’t find purchase.

The foot ground down hard on Theron’s pinned wrist just as he managed to grab hold of the pistol with his free hand, and he tugged it towards himself, fingers coiling around the grip and the trigger. He turned, ignoring the pain in his wrist, and brought the blaster up towards his captor –

Just in time to see the stock of a blaster rifle swinging down to meet his face. The rifle connected with an audible, sickening crunch, and then it was lights out for Theron Shan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Midnight City" is by M83.
> 
> Mandalorian:  
>  _Vod_ \- brother, sister, mate/friend


	28. Somewhere Out There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions run high as Theron's absence is felt.

_**Asylum, Unknown Regions (Wild Space), Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The safe house was a flurry of activity, like a Killik nest in the midst of harvest. Vector tried to stay focused on the task at hand – packing up their clothing, accessories and grooming products – but his gaze kept being dragged towards the hot swirl of righteous fury in the centre of the room. Even under normal circumstances Miranza and Theron were often the focus of his attention, but now, with Theron absent and Miranza enraged, he couldn’t keep himself from being distracted. And with every article of clothing he jammed into their duffel bags a voice in the back of his mind kept whispering over and over again _“They’ve taken him.”_

Vector wasn’t – quite – on the verge of panic. Not just yet. Barrazhat had returned to the safe house less than half an hour ago, battered and staggering and filled with grim determination and a crushing sense of failure. Theron was gone, nabbed by unknown assailants who had left Barrazhat beaten and unconscious in a back alley near the Asylum marketplace. Barrazhat blamed himself; he’d sensed the trap but had been unable to stop it, had been unable to fight off the heavily-armoured thugs who had attacked them. If he’d been in his beskar’gam, if he’d been more prepared, more suspicious …

“Not your fault,” Miranza murmured for what Vector was certain had to be the tenth time or the hundredth. She worked with quiet and steady focus, bandaging Barrazhat’s battered ribs, stitching a cut over his eye, where a piercing had been ripped out. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Vector could see the careful way she held herself, the cool deliberation that had her fixed on patching Barrazhat up instead of tearing the safe house apart in anger and frustration. He knew she would rather be out searching for Theron, but Barrazhat had already searched the marketplace, chasing down every last lead before returning to the safe house empty-handed.

Theron was gone.

Vector could feel the quiet terror pouring off of his wife, even as she did her best to keep it under wraps. On the surface she was calm and focused, and Vector had no doubt that under that surface she was still in complete control of herself, making plans, counter-plans, back-up plans, calculating the odds and assessing each and every possibility that came to her. But underneath all of that he knew she was terrified. Theron was _gone,_ and they had no idea who had taken him or why.

Both Vector and Miranza could think of a few suspects. Vector was fairly certain his wife had narrowed the possibilities down to precisely one person: Amrielle. But Vector himself was reluctant to be so certain; there were other enemies out there, and hyper-focusing on the Nautolan woman and the Star Cabal in lieu of everything else meant that they were ignoring the other potential threats. Theron had made other enemies over the years, and it was entirely possible that his kidnapping had more to do with their efforts to rescue the Outlander than with the other organizations Theron had interfered with in his time as an SIS agent. Vector allowed Miranza her conviction, however, because even if she truly believed Amrielle was the one behind Theron’s kidnapping that didn’t mean she would go so far as to disregard any other suggestions that came up.

If it _was_ Amrielle … Vector gave himself a small shake, refusing to dwell on the threats the Nautolan had made regarding Theron’s eventual fate in her custody. It was all too easy to picture Theron as some Sith lord’s plaything, however, and for a brief moment Vector felt a ripple of anger towards his wife for keeping Amrielle’s messages a secret for so long. His anger was pointless and would accomplish nothing, though, and so Vector forced it down along with the nightmarish visions of Theron in the custody of some sadistic Sith.

_Focus,_ Vector told himself forcefully, shifting his thoughts back to the task at hand. He had started out carefully folding and packing their clothing, but now he worked more quickly, bundling things up and simply shoving them into the duffel to be sorted out later. Wrinkled clothing was far at the bottom of his list of concerns at the moment. He didn’t permit himself to linger over Theron’s things, the way the man’s scent clung to his clothes, the soft strands of dark hair twined through the bristles on his brush, the battered calibration kit he used to maintain his implants. _We shall find him. We shall get him back._ Theron would wear these clothes again, would use this brush again, would need to repair his implants again - none of these things were being packed up for the last time. They would get him back.

They had done it before. They would do it again.

Before, of course, they’d had the combined resources of the Republic SIS and Sith Intelligence to search for Theron, specialists who had passed on the most reliable tips and leads their agencies had received. Now they were … what? A handful of rogue agents, isolated from their respective organizations and governments, forced to work from the shadows in order to avoid notice from the authorities. While they certainly still had friends and connections they could reach out to, this wasn’t going to be a simple matter of contacting Jonas Balkar and having him hand over a file, or utilizing the most talented slicers in Kaas City to tear through surveillance feeds and HoloNet sightings. This was one man, lost in a vast galaxy, and no backup to speak of. One very tiny needle in one exceptionally massive haystack.

“Describe their armour for me again,” Rekka commanded her husband. She had been in the midst of taking down their communications equipment, but had now paused and was standing beside Barrazhat and Miranza, a datapad in hand. Barrazhat had given a brief description of their attackers before, but it had been vague; he’d been uncertain of the numbers and everyone involved had worn helmets, so he couldn’t describe facial features or hair and skin colouring. Armour, though: armour he could describe.

Barrazhat grimaced as Miranza applied kolto to a particularly nasty laceration along his collarbone. He closed his eyes, no doubt drawing the memory of the kidnapping to the forefront of his mind. “Not Mandalorian, I’m certain of that. Mismatched, cheap _osik._ Nothing properly fitted or tailored. My best guess is they’ve been scavenging their gear from various sources, trading up when they find something better quality.”

“Mmhmm.” Rekka nodded, making notes on her datapad. “Could they have targeted Theron for his implants, maybe? You said one of them warned against damaging the goods, right?”

“It’s possible,” Barrazhat said slowly, tone considering. “But –”

“We don’t have time for this,” Lana interrupted, sounding frustrated even as she shot an apologetic look in Miranza’s direction. The Sith lord had finished with the communications equipment and was in the process of gathering up Theron’s rather impression collection of datapads. Vector sometimes secretly wondered if the datapad collection was self-replicating, and if more datapads were being added to the pile whenever they weren’t looking. “We need to finish clearing out the safe house and prepare to meet up with Koth.”

Vector’s hands stilled, a hooded sweatshirt of Theron’s flopping listlessly over the cot. It lay like a dead thing over the mattress, navy blue fabric faded from multiple washes. Across the room both Miranza and Barrazhat stiffened, Barrazhat’s mouth falling open before he shut it with a loud click.

“You can’t be serious,” Rekka said, looking from Lana to Barrazhat, her grey eyes narrowing. “You still want to go to Zakuul? _Now?”_

Lana shot the Mandalorian woman a beseeching look, holding one of the datapads up and gesturing with it.

“Yes, of course I’m serious!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “Losing Theron is an unfortunate setback, but we’re on a tight schedule here. We can’t afford to miss our window.”

_“An unfortunate setback?”_ Miranza repeated incredulously, turning to face the other blonde woman. Lana’s words put Vector in mind of Rishi, years ago when the Sith lord had arranged for Theron to be captured by the Revanites in order to acquire information while under interrogation. Lana’s plan had worked, but that betrayal had cut Theron deeply, and even though Vector and Miranza had gone to his rescue he had still been slow to trust them again after that. He had understandably assumed that they were in accord with Lana – they were all Imperials, after all. It was to be expected. Vector could tell from Miranza’s tone that she was thinking much the same thing. On Rishi she had been angry with Lana, but in no real position to countermand the Sith lord’s orders. Now, however, Lana was not Miranza’s superior in anything, and Miranza did not answer to her.

“Miranza,” Lana said quietly, her eyes on the former Cipher agent, “Theron is _not_ the mission.”

It was easy to forget, after days of lounging around in bed and whispering and cuddling together in the darkness, that at her core Miranza Gerrick was an incredibly dangerous woman. Even Vector, who knew her best of anyone present, tended to see her as simply his wife, the woman that he loved, all beauty and grace and soft, welcoming curves. But the words were barely out of Lana’s mouth before Miranza was moving, shoving off from the table where she had been working and launching herself in Lana’s direction. Before anyone else had time to move Miranza was pressed up against Lana, pinning the Sith lord between herself and the wall, a small vibroblade tucked up under Lana’s chin. Vector hadn’t even known his wife had been armed.

“This isn’t Rishi, Lana,” Miranza hissed. Her free hand was braced along Lana’s chest, pinning the taller woman in place. Vector knew that if it came down to sheer power between them, Lana would win; Miranza was talented, but no amount of talent could match against a Sith lord’s Force powers. But there was little Lana could do to Miranza that wouldn’t hurt or possibly even kill her, and given that reluctance to injure an ally skill-wise Miranza had the edge. And Miranza had far more experience in dealing with enraged Sith than Lana had in grappling with Intelligence agents.

“This isn’t Rishi,” Miranza said again, voice filled with quiet menace. “This isn’t Rishi, and it isn’t Dromund Kaas, and _I am not your agent._ I don’t answer to you. If you think we are just packing up and leaving Theron behind, you are very much mistaken.”

“Miranza …” Rekka began, looking conflicted but not leaving her position, the datapad still gripped in her hand.

“Beloved …” Vector murmured, swallowing hard. The last thing they needed was to be at each other’s throats – literally.

To Lana’s credit she didn’t back down, even with Miranza’s blade at her throat. Her golden eyes were wide, however, and her face very, very pale, and when she swallowed – delicately, so as not to get nicked – the sound seemed very loud in the small room.

“With all due respect, Miranza,” she said carefully, her gaze not leaving Miranza’s face, “I’m not suggesting you abandon Theron. I’m simply saying that we have a timeline that we must adhere to if we’ve any hope of recovering the Outlander. All of us – Theron included, perhaps Theron chief of all – have worked far too hard and for far too long for us to drop everything now in order to go on a wild convor chase in search of Theron. As much as I respect and appreciate him, Theron Shan is not our mission.”

Vector had no memory of moving or of even _thinking_ of moving, but before he knew it he was standing directly behind Miranza. He could see the sharp tension in her body, the coiled energy just waiting to burst out into action. Her aura was fierce and vibrant, thrumming with righteous fury and indignation, so brilliant it seemed to him as though she were giving off sparks and surely, _surely_ the others must be able to see it even without the blessing of being Joined. Under different circumstances he might have enjoyed seeing her like this, all wild rage and potential violence, but at the moment ... It wasn’t helping.

“Beloved,” he said softly, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder, feeling her muscles bunching and tensing beneath his touch. He leaned in and spoke into Miranza’s ear. “This is not helping, love. This is not how we will get Theron back.”

The tension eased somewhat at his touch, and Miranza slowly lowered the vibroblade, drawing it away from Lana’s throat although she kept her other hand resting over the Sith woman’s chest. Miranza let out a slow exhalation of breath and pulled back, releasing Lana and stepping back into Vector’s waiting embrace. He curled his arm loosely around her waist, not holding on to her, but prepared to tighten his grip if she changed her mind and went after Lana again.

“With all due respect, Lana,” he said, tone quiet, deliberately mimicking her earlier words, “there would not _be_ a mission without Theron Shan. With the exception of yourself, none of us would be here now had he not reached out to us. We understand that there are … constraints” – he felt Miranza stiffen against him, and brushed a reassuring hand over her arm – “and that time is of the essence, but we are not abandoning Theron here.”

Lana ran a hand through her blonde hair, sparing a wide-eyed glance for the people crowded around her. She let out an impatient huff, saying, “I’m not suggesting we abandon Theron! Barrazhat, you said your attackers didn’t want Theron damaged – surely that means they want him kept alive. That gives us a window, at least. We cannot afford to be distracted from the main mission, however, and regrettably that mission is rescuing Caedan Savarr, not searching for Theron.” She fixed Vector with a cool, assessing gaze. “You’re right, of course. None of us would be here were it not for him. Do we not owe it to him to see the job done?”

Miranza stirred again, her aura shot through with grief and anger, and Vector curled his fingers lightly around her wrist. Lana, sensing her opening, pressed onward.

“Theron Shan is one man, one soldier,” she said, a note of apology in her voice. She glanced between Vector and Miranza, keeping her eyes on both of them. “Caedan Savarr is a symbol. We need him if we’ve any hope of defeating Arcann and the Eternal Empire. The galaxy –”

“Fuck the galaxy,” Miranza said, voice soft but filled with determination. She pulled away from Vector and, without a backward glance, stormed out the door.

Lana closed her eyes, resting her head back against the wall with a quiet thump. She seemed to deflate, her shoulders sagging, and Vector didn’t need to be able to see the sorrow and guilt in her aura to know how horrible she felt. He had always admired her pragmatism, but, he reflected, it must be a rather lonely way to live one’s life.

“That might have gone better,” Lana murmured, eyes still closed, thumping her head against the wall a second time.

Vector moved away, half-tempted to go and follow Miranza, but returned his attention to packing their belongings. Miranza would return when she had calmed down – or not. He had no concerns she would go far or that she would take off in search of Theron on her own. At the very least she would ask him to accompany her. He hesitated, staring blankly down at the half-filled duffel bag and the assorted items that still needed to be packed before they could clear the safe house out. Behind him Barrazhat hopped down from the table, one arm wrapped protectively around his middle as he started helping his wife pack. The two Mandalorians spoke quietly to each other, their voices a low murmur, their heads close together. Had Vector wanted to he could have listened in on their conversation, but for the moment he left them their privacy. If they wanted him to know what they were saying, they would speak louder or call him over to join in. As it was, he could hear the concern in their voices, and he suspected that Rekka had not dropped the topic of Theron’s kidnappers.

“I am sorry, Vector,” Lana said. She had pushed away from the wall to come and stand beside Vector, and she picked up one of Theron’s T-shirts – the Hello Nexu one Miranza loved so much – and was idly stroking the fabric through her fingers. The pink cloth was soft and well-worn. “I am not …” She sighed and tried again, “I do not intend to seem callous. I _am_ worried for Theron – of course I am! – but we’ve already suffered a setback in losing Micah to Saresh’s meddling. Now with Theron gone, too, we cannot afford for all of us to go off willy-nilly. We need to focus. We’ve a job to do, and Theron, of all people, would understand why he cannot be our top priority.”

Vector nodded absently, frowning. Yes, Theron would understand, Lana was absolutely right about that. Theron would be the last person to suggest they deviate from their plan just to try and rescue him. He would always put the mission above himself, just as he put all other things above himself, just as he was never the top priority. No doubt wherever he was, Theron would be worrying that his absence would interfere with their plans; it wouldn’t even occur to him, selfless fool that he was, that Vector or Miranza would choose him over saving the galaxy.

_Fuck the galaxy,_ Vector thought, Miranza’s words echoing in his head. He snorted, earning himself a puzzled glance from Lana; Miranza and Theron were becoming a bad influence on him. He’d seldom cursed before he’d met them.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “Theron would understand why he cannot be our top priority. But in this instance, he is. We are sorry, Lana, but the Outlander will need to wait. Theron comes first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Somewhere Out There" is a song by Our Lady Peace, although if you prefer you could instead think of the song from the animated film _An American Tail_ and picture a couple of mouse kids singing it to each other. That works, too. :D
> 
> Apologies to fans of Lana if she sees OOC here. I love Lana Beniko. It wasn't my intention to paint her as a callous bitch, but she does strike me as someone who is very much focused on the mission, and one missing man is not worth abandoning the end goal for.
> 
> Mando'a:  
>  _Osik_ \- dung (impolite)


	29. Got You Where I Want You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron has some time to think and tries to make a new friend.

_**Unknown Space, Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

As restricted quarters went, Theron had had worse.

He had awakened to find himself confined to a small cage in the cargo hold of some kind of patrol craft. Theron’s cage was flanked on either side by two others, both empty, and the walls were comprised of a force-field that left the world outside tinged in pinkish-red. He had enough room to lie down and stretch out, and he could stand up straight if he wanted to, but aside from the chamber pot in the corner – which he was resolutely ignoring for the time being – there wasn’t much in the way of amenities. He’d tried tinkering with the force-field and earned himself a harsh jolt to the hand for his trouble; it didn’t seem overly complicated and he thought, with the right tools, he could probably crack it – but he didn’t have the right tools. He didn’t have _any_ tools. He was stuck.

At some point between when he was knocked out in the alley and when he was dumped into his cell, someone had fitted Theron with a shock collar of some sort. It weighed heavy around his neck, the metal cool to the touch and humming just faintly, a sensation he could feel in his teeth and at his temples. He hadn’t been able to feel where the collar joined or where the locking mechanism was, but he’d seen enough shock collars on other people to recognize one now. With a mirror and a set of lockpicks he could probably get the collar off, but again: no tools. He rather desperately hoped it wasn’t the sort of shock collar that came with explosives built in, the ones that would detonate if he got past some invisible checkpoint or pissed off the wrong person. It was bad enough getting zapped for his stupidity and defiance; he didn’t much fancy the idea of his head exploding. He was strongly in favour of keeping his head attached to his shoulders. He liked it there.

His implants were also on the fritz again, which he suspected had something to do with that red burst of lightning he’d felt just before they’d taken him down. He’d been too distracted by how much it hurt – not to mention more than just a little distracted by fighting for his life – to notice how dull and muted everything had become immediately after that shock, but now that he was stuck sitting in a cell it was difficult not to pick up the differences. His normal, unenhanced senses were struggling to bring in the same amount of input that he normally received through his implants, leaving him with a throbbing headache from his brain trying to overcompensate. It was a familiar sensation, one he had had to live with after he’d fried his implants with that trap on Zakuul two years ago. He had tried rebooting his cybernetics but they stubbornly remained offline; he just hoped that whatever had fried them hadn’t caused permanent damage. It was a pain in the ass getting his implants replaced – and expensive, to boot.

Of course, fixing his implants depended on getting out of his current situation, which … wasn’t happening. He’d spent the past hour or so (it was difficult to gauge time; he didn’t have a chrono on him and with his implants offline he couldn’t rely on their horological input, either) examining his cell, which had only resulted in him getting mildly electrocuted (enough to know that if he persisted he’d get a worse shock) and establishing the precise measurements of his limited space. Theron could see outside his cage, of course, but that didn’t help him much: sure, there were definitely things he could use to aid in his escape, but he was somewhat hampered by his inability to get out of the cage in the first place. If he’d been a Jedi and able to use the Force he might have been able to manipulate the lock on his collar or on the cage itself, but the Force mostly just seemed interested in screwing his life up on a semi-regular basis rather than actually being _useful_ for a change.

Still … it definitely wasn’t the worst cell he’d been locked up in. He could think of worse. The lock-up on Nar Shaddaa immediately sprang to mind. Or the one on the Sun Razor. Oh, and that luxury suite on Corellia where he’d been trapped with Samar and the Star Cabal ... Yeah, Theron had had worse accommodations.

The back wall of the cage was the only one without the force-field, built as it was into the durasteel wall of the hold itself. Theron sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning back against the metal wall. The cargo hold was chilly, and the cold had seeped through the thin fabric of the trousers he’d been dressed in. That was another annoyance: at some point between Asylum and … wherever he was now … Theron had been stripped and redressed in nothing more than a pair of pants. His boots, socks and belt were gone, along with the various weapons and tools he’d carried on him – including his holocomm, his slicer’s kit and his lockpicks – and he didn’t even have a shirt or jacket to keep him warm. He didn’t think the cargo hold was so cold that hypothermia would become an issue, but a warm blanket or a cup of hot cocoa wouldn’t have been remiss. It was creepy to think that someone had undressed - and searched - him, but it certainly wasn’t the first time _that_ had happened to him, either. He thought he was starting to get rather blasé about the whole experience.

It was funny. Theron was pissed off – of course – and definitely annoyed with himself for falling into the trap, but for the moment he wasn’t actually _afraid._ Had he spent so much time in captivity that the idea had ceased to be a threat to him? Or was he simply so messed up from all the trauma he’d experienced over the years that at this point he didn’t even know what trauma was anymore? His captors – one of them, at least – had referred to him as “the goods” and had been quick to specify that he wasn’t to be damaged. (A couple of boots to the ribs and a rifle-butt to the face didn’t count, obviously – although he had woken up with sticky patches of kolto on both his side and his temple, so someone was clearly looking out for him.) Wherever he was going, whoever his captors were taking him to, he was wanted there alive and mostly in one piece. That had to count for something, right? Far from being paralyzed with fear, Theron was mostly just annoyed at the inconvenience.

They were on a deadline, after all. This was going to kriff everything up.

It was his kriffing fault for falling for that trap. The moment he’d seen the kid, he had known it was some kind of setup. Stars, he and Barrazhat had _both_ had their guards up; they’d both known they were being watched. Whatever in the galaxy had possessed him to go down that alley? How could he have been so _stupid?_

Theron scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing the fingers of his left hand over his inactive implants. The skin around the cybernetics felt bruised and raw, and he wondered if whatever his assailant had used to short his implants out had burned him somehow. It would’ve been handy to have a mirror so he could check on the damage. At least without a shirt on he could see the faint bruising around his ribs where he’d been kicked a couple of times, but he had no clue what the marks on his face looked like. Probably like a Corellian sunset, if the bruises on his side were any indication.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ The back of his head struck the wall softly with each repetition of the word: thunk, thunk, thunk. He stopped and ran his hands over his face again, then through his hair, making it all stand on end. Yeah, maybe he’d been a kriffing idiot, but he never would have been able to live with himself if there had been a real child in that alley, crying and bleeding on that stoop. He’d made a lot of questionable decisions in his lifetime but even knowing the outcome of that one, he would make it again. Better to be stuck freezing his half-naked ass off in a cage than let some little kid die alone and cold. He regretted the outcome, sure, but he didn’t regret his decision. He never wanted to be the kind of callous asshole who could abandon a kid like that.

An uncomfortable memory of himself, alone and cold and huddling on a stoop for warmth and shelter from the rain, rose unbidden to the forefront of his mind. He’d _been_ that kid, and while Theron had been older than the holographic image his captor had projected, he still knew what it felt like to be completely alone in the galaxy. To be hurting and hungry and to know that no one was coming to rescue you. Those early days after Master Zho had left him on Tython, after he’d been sent away from the Jedi Order with nothing but best wishes and a credit chip to see him to the nearest Republic planet, Theron had known _exactly_ what it had felt like. The galaxy could be a cold, hard place to adults, but Theron knew from painful personal experience how much worse it could be for children, and if that made him a sucker when it came to seeing little kids in distress, then kriff it, yes, Theron Shan was a sucker.

He thunked his head against the wall a fourth time before dropping his face in his hands. Stars, what a disaster.

Miranza and Vector had to be climbing the walls – and that was assuming they weren’t out tearing Asylum apart trying to find him. He only hoped that Barrazhat made it back to the safe house in one piece; the big bounty hunter wasn’t stuck in the cage beside him, so Theron had to assume he was left behind. If only Theron had been taken, then that likely meant that whatever this was about, it had nothing to do with rescuing the Outlander, because Barrazhat was as involved in _that_ mission as Theron was. Was this good or bad, though? If this had nothing to do with Caedan Savarr and trying to overthrow Arcann, then which of Theron’s many possible enemies was coming after him _this_ time? The Shroud? Amrielle and the Star Cabal? Some Imperial flunky out to make a name for themselves by capturing the Technoplague? Or was it one of Miranza’s enemies? (To the best of Theron’s knowledge Vector didn’t have any enemies, or at least none that he’d made on his own – just plenty he’d inherited from his wife.) Or was it something a little (metaphorically) closer to home: Saresh, his father, maybe Satele returned from wherever she’d wandered off to?

It would be enormously helpful if his captors would come pay him a visit. (And maybe bring some food. Sausage in a bun had been a while ago, and his stomach was starting to rumble unhappily.) Theron wouldn’t be surprised if they refused to tell him who they worked for or where he was going, but even just knowing who they _were_ would let him start working on the problem. He hated having a puzzle and no pieces to play with.

And it would keep him from being alone with his thoughts, which were … generally unkind to him.

These past few years Theron had become spoiled. He had anticipated that once he walked away from the SIS and the Republic he’d be on his own, and okay, he was used to being on his own. He was good at it. He worked best doing the lone-wolf thing. But the thing was, he _wasn’t_ alone now. Miranza and Vector had walked away, too, ditching the Empire and their old lives and making the call to join him and Lana in their little crusade to rescue the Outlander. And so Theron had gone from doing the lone-wolf thing to being a part of something bigger, and in so doing he had finally found a place where he could belong and be happy. If anyone would have told him twenty years ago – stars, even _ten_ years ago – that he would wind up in a happy little threesome with a couple of Imperial agents ( _former_ Imperial agents) he would have laughed his ass off. And yet … here he was. There _they_ were. Happy. _Together._

Theron had never been a big fan of romance. Not romantic holovids, not those bodice-rippers Lana read that she thought none of them knew about … (but, come on, they were _spies_ ), none of it. Sure, he could get behind cuddling and flowers and chocolates and long, dreamy walks on the beach, but at the end of the day he was shit at relationships and he knew it. His fellow agents back at the SIS had joked he was married to his job, and they hadn’t been wrong. He could try blaming it on his messed-up upbringing, but let’s face it, there were lots of folks out there with completely screwed-up childhoods who still managed to wrap their brains around happy, healthy, committed relationships. (And just as many folks with happy childhoods who still managed to fuck up their adult lives.) He just wasn’t one of them, or so he’d thought, until a pair of (obviously insane) Imperial agents came to rescue him from a nightmare of captivity and brainwashing.

And now they were … whatever they were. They didn’t talk about it, didn’t define their relationship. There’d been no formal commitment ceremonies, no promises made, no vows exchanged. But after years of loneliness and insecurity, Theron had grown to appreciate the fact that when he woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream, Vector and Miranza were there to comfort him. When he was being particularly hard on himself, they were there to shut that angry internal voice down and show him support. They were a team, the three of them, and Theron had grown accustomed to it.

He'd been _spoiled._

And now he was alone, in a cold, dark cell, and the only voice was the one inside his head.

The voice inside his head was … kind of an asshole.

 _You kriffed up,_ that voice informed him. _Bad enough that Micah got pinched, but now you’ve gone and taken yourself out of play, too? So much for saving the galaxy, Shan._

Their plan had relied upon two pilots and two ships. Originally that had meant Micah Savarr and Theron himself, but then Micah had fallen afoul of Republic authorities and landed himself in prison, and they’d been lucky when Lana’s friend Koth offered to take his place. Now they were down another pilot, unless Theron could manage to get himself out of this mess. If he couldn’t - if he was stuck there, if Miranza and Vector and the others did the smart thing and left him to rot - they would be forced to make up a new plan. And while Theron was confident his team could pull it off, he still felt the crushing weight of guilt at fucking things up so badly.

 _Just like you always do, Shan,_ the voice reminded him. It sounded - ever so slightly - like Samar.

“Shut up,” Theron muttered out loud. His voice echoed around the cargo hold and he winced, glancing around to be certain no one else was there. With his luck his captors were watching him on holocam, recording this little breakdown so they could watch it and laugh later.

 _Get a grip, Shan,_ he told himself, forcibly squashing the angry internal self-loathing with another violent scrub of his face. His hands were like ice; he really, really wished he had a jacket or a blanket or something. Stars, he would’ve been willing to snuggle up to Jakarro, and that Wookiee had some _serious_ hygiene issues. _You haven’t been in captivity long enough to start losing it._

It really was cold in there, though, and not just because he was lonely and feeling sorry for himself. Theron lowered himself onto the ground, grimacing at the metal grate of the cage floor that dug into his bare skin. Back to the wall, he curled one arm protectively around his battered side and tried to rest.

It must have worked, because the next thing he knew booted feet were stalking towards him and all his muscles were stiff from lying on the cold ground. He pushed himself up off the floor, standing awkwardly, and made himself keep his hands loose and open at his sides, rather than crossed defensively over his chest. A few seconds later an armoured figure stepped into his field of view, the same person he’d seen back on Asylum, the one who’d sprung the trap. They were still dressed in their armour – a mismatched assortment of battered gear that would have made Rekka roll her eyes in disgust – but as they got closer one gauntled hand reached up to remove the helmet and Theron found himself face to face with a young-looking human woman with scars all down one side of her face. She was dark-haired and fair-skinned, and her eyes were mismatched: one blue-grey, the other more blue-green. She might have been pretty if it weren’t for the fact that she was currently holding him captive on an unknown spaceship for reasons he had yet to determine.

She looked so … _young._ A decade younger than him, easily. It made him want to go easier on her, but he quashed that notion down almost immediately. Young did not mean innocent - a fact he knew quite well, given how early _he_ had started down his particular path.

“I guess I have you to thank for my accommodations?” Theron drawled, gesturing expansively at the dark cargo hold. “I can’t wait to write up my review. ‘Requested en suite bathroom: host provided chamber pot. Heater malfunctioning. No turn-down service. Two out of five stars, would not recommend.’”

The young woman snorted and rolled her eyes. “Cute.”

“I’ve been called worse.” Theron shrugged and aimed for a disarming smile. She was young; maybe he could charm his way out of this. It wouldn’t be the first time. “You got a name?”

“I do, but you don’t need to know it.” The woman took a step closer to the cage, smirking. The scars on the right side of her face made her skin look like melted wax. “Unfortunately the first-class bunks on this tub are all spoken for, so you’ll have to make do with your little cage. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the force-field is electrified and amps up with every millisecond of exposure. I don’t think it can kill you, but” – she grinned broadly – “to be honest no one’s ever tried, so I honestly have no idea. I’ll be bringing you some food and water later, but if you think about jumping me while the force-field is down you’ll want to think again. That pretty necklace you’re wearing will shock you until you’re drooling and pissing on the floor if you so much as look at me funny. Understand?”

Theron swallowed heavily, deliberately widening his eyes to appear more afraid than he was. He nodded once before saying, “No touching the walls, no funny moves. Pissing and drooling. Got it.”

“Good.” The woman turned as if to leave, then paused, glancing back at him. “Any questions?”

Theron thought about asking where they were going or who she was working for, but decided against it. Better to seem cowed and intimidated, and work on winning her over. Now that he had some idea of who was holding him captive, his questions could wait. He could think of one thing to ask, however, that might play to her sympathies (if she had any). Lowering his head and glancing down at the floor, Theron shuffled his feet and made a show of rubbing his hands over his bare arms, but didn’t go so far as to feign shivering (although it wouldn’t have been hard – he was freezing).

“Do you … Do you think you could maybe spare a blanket?” he asked, doing his best to sound awkward and uncomfortable. Long before he’d joined the SIS he’d mastered the charming beggar act; it came in handy when you were _literally_ begging for food and shelter on the streets, and the right kind of innocent, boyish smile had often meant the difference between enough credits to buy himself a sandwich and maybe a cup of caf, or scrounging around in the dumpster for scraps - or going hungry. Amazing, the shit you had to learn when you were on your own. Even Miranza, hardened spy that she was, couldn’t help but fall for his lost little boy routine, and _she_ knew better. This stranger? Easy pickings, surely. “It’s … it’s kinda cold down here.”

The woman heaved a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes again. “Ugh. _Yes,_ I can get you a blanket. Might as well get comfy, stud – you’re in for the long haul.”

“I am?” Theron blinked up at her, switching from a warm smile of gratitude to an expression of confusion and uncertainty in a heartbeat. It was like swiping one mask off and replacing it with another. “Why? Where … Where are we going?”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. She snapped the helmet back onto her head and moved towards the metal stairs that led deeper into the ship, but then paused again. He couldn’t see her face through the visor, but he felt the weight of her gaze on him, assessing him. He worried he’d pushed too far, been just that little bit melodramatic and thanks to that now she wasn’t buying it. He wished he could still see her face to get a better idea of what she was thinking.

When she finally answered him her voice had that modulated effect again, sounding tinny and droid-like: “Coruscant. It seems you’re missed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Got You Where I Want You" is by the Flys.
> 
> My comments on Theron’s background are just speculation and headcanon on my part, since there doesn’t really seem to be anything about his life between Tython and becoming an SIS agent (aside from swoop-racing on Manaan). I don’t get the impression that a lot of thought or care went into his departure from Tython, though (it basically sounded like he was just pointed at the spaceport and told to get lost) and life can’t be easy for 13-year-old kids on their own in the galaxy. Runaways and outcasts have it bad in reality and in fiction, unfortunately.


	30. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Information is gathered, plans are made and executed.

_**Unknown Space, Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

In theory Theron should have been good at waiting. Intelligence-gathering was often a waiting game, one that he knew well, and his early years with Master Zho had taught him the value of patience. He could sit in surveillance for hours on end, nothing more than a pair of macrobinoculars and his own mind to entertain him. He knew patience. He knew discipline. He should have been good at this.

Waiting in a cage on an unknown spaceship was a different game entirely, he’d discovered.

The cell was not uncomfortable. Sure, the cargo hold was a little on the chilly side and he would have appreciated some privacy when it came time to attend to certain bodily functions – not to mention sleeping; it was difficult to really rest when he felt so exposed – but all in all he’d had worse. And his hostess-with-the-mostest was a reasonably pleasant woman who took pains to ensure her captive was in good health. Food was brought to him on a regular basis (ration bars and paste, but it wouldn’t be the first time Theron had had to survive on both and it certainly beat scrounging around in dumpsters or going without) and he had as much water as he wanted (some caf or a shot of whiskey wouldn’t have gone astray). He was even periodically escorted from his cage to a nearby ‘fresher in order to shower, and although his captor kept blaster pistols aimed at him at all times he was allowed to take the shock collar off so that he could clean himself properly. Not that he had much hope of getting up to any mischief in the ‘fresher, granted, but his host was a wary woman and frankly, if he could have done anything to get himself out of this mess he would have.

Left to his own devices, Theron found himself rapidly running out of ways to keep his mind occupied. He started each day with meditation, an old habit he’d learned from Master Zho, and when breakfast arrived – usually a couple of ration bars with some sort of fake fruit filling, and no matter what the wrapper claimed the “fruit” always tasted like synthetic cherries – he’d spend some time making small-talk with his captor, trying to coax more information out of her. She was chatty, but exceptionally good at evading Theron’s questions; he still didn’t even know her name or who she was taking him to. After breakfast he did what limited exercises were available to him: push-ups, crunches, sit-ups, planks, anything that didn’t require equipment or much space. Lunch was more ration bars with a side of paste, and more idle conversation with She-Who-Shall-Not-Name-Herself. After lunch: more meditation, more exercises, and maybe a nap if he was feeling especially bored. Then dinner, which was – surprise, surprise! – yet more ration bars and flavourless paste. He would’ve appreciated a datapad to read or maybe some pazaak cards for him to play a few solo hands against himself to occupy the time, but he couldn’t blame his captor for not trusting him with anything. He certainly wouldn’t have been the first person to attempt an escape using some playing cards.

Theron had too much time to think, and while there was a long list of things he could think about, his mind kept coming back to one thing: Coruscant, and whoever had hired his captor to deliver him there.

There were, he thought, three likely suspects: his mother, his father, and ex-Chancellor Saresh. Theron could almost certainly dismiss Satele Shan as the culprit; she had gone missing sometime after the Zakuulan invasion and while he had made the effort to try and track her down her whereabouts remained unknown. He didn’t think it terribly likely that she would hire a bounty hunter to locate and capture him; in his mind that seemed like a huge departure from her typical method of pretending he didn’t exist at all. Saresh also seemed somewhat unlikely, although he supposed in theory she might have teamed up with his former employer, SIS Director Marcus Trant, to reel him back in to the Republic. Trant might have gone along with it in order to bring Theron back into the SIS fold, but Saresh probably just wanted to throw him in prison – or in front of a firing squad, depending on how far she wanted to push treason charges against him. The final – and to Theron’s way of thinking, most likely – suspect was Jace Malcom. He’d failed to convince Theron to come back to the Republic when they’d met on Corellia and his attempts to get Miranza out of the way had likewise bombed. Maybe he’d figured if he could just get Theron home they could sort everything out then, in person. As if being on Coruscant would somehow solve everything.

In a way the knowledge that he was going to Coruscant was strangely comforting to Theron. He was, regardless of his work with a bunch of Imperials and the fledgling alliance, a Republic citizen, with all the rights and privileges that entailed. If Saresh was behind his capture then there were processes and procedures that would have to take place; he wasn’t just going to be shot on sight the moment he stepped foot on the planet. (Probably.) There would be inquiries, a trial: a system that Theron was familiar with and could work with (or against). And if it wasn’t Saresh, then even better – he was confident he could work things out with his mother or his father. Sure, this was bad, and him being gone had to be wreaking havoc with Lana’s plans for rescuing Caedan, but this wasn’t the end of the galaxy. Out of all the possible places Theron could go and the possible enemies he might have to face, the ones he would find on Coruscant were the safest. Theoretically speaking. At least on Coruscant he’d have a chance to get himself out of this mess, without needing to wait for his lovers to come and save his sorry ass. It would be difficult for them to get to him there, of course, but he thought he could probably manage on his own.

He just had to bide his time. He just had to _wait._

O o O o O

Under normal circumstances being woken from a deep sleep by the chiming of her holocomm would have annoyed Miranza, but this particular deep sleep was plagued by nightmares and even though it had taken her hours before she had fallen asleep in the first place she was grateful for the disturbance. She sat up in bed, frowning at the empty space beside her, and tried to remember where she’d left her comm. By the time she found it – buried under a stack of datapads, half of which she couldn’t remember leaving there and the other half which likely belonged to Theron – she was wide awake, if somewhat bleary-eyed.

On the other end the holographic image of Shae Vizla was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as the saying went. The Mandalorian was blue and flickering transparent, suggesting that the signal between them was weak, but Miranza recognized her right away even if it had been a few years since they’d last seen each other. She looked good: chipper, professional, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice.

_“Su cuy’gar,”_ Shae hailed her. Miranza’s Mando’a was rusty, but she recognized the familiar Mandalorian greeting; it literally meant “You’re still alive.” _“Did I wake you?”_

Miranza waved the question off. She had no idea what time it was where Shae was – indeed, she wasn’t even certain she knew _where_ the warrior was – but she was reasonably confident wherever it was, it was daylight there. Behind Shae Miranza could see the walls of a tent in the background, men and women in heavy armour moving around her, carrying crates and boxes, setting up camp. A glance at her own chrono revealed that it was close to three in the morning for her, and Miranza frowned down again at the empty side of the bed where Vector ought to have been sleeping. Had her tossing and turning kept him up, or was he having as much trouble sleeping as she was?

Theron had been missing for close to a week and Miranza was well past the climbing the walls stage. Anger and adrenaline kept her working long past when she should have gone to bed and it felt like they weren’t getting anywhere in their efforts to locate him. Lana – in what was obviously intended as an olive branch between them – had consulted with her doctors regarding the Outlander’s carbonite poisoning and then had gone over the timeline for their rescue plans; she had grudgingly concluded that the rescue could be pushed back a month, no more, that the same window of opportunity that opened up in a few days would be opening again in a month’s time. It was risky, Miranza knew: Master Savarr could be moved from his current position, or his poisoning could progress faster than expected, or any number of catastrophes could occur between now and the new schedule. It was unlike Lana to take such risks, but at the same time Miranza understood: the Sith lord needed her team to have their heads in the game, and with Theron missing that was most definitely not happening. The pragmatic decision, therefore, was to push the timeline back in the hopes that Theron could be found and rescued. It might even be possible to have Micah Savarr released from Republic prison by then, in which case their team would be back up to full strength.

Miranza accepted the olive branch. She and Lana were still angry with each other, but they understood each other. Their priorities were different, that was all. Once upon a time Miranza’s priorities would have aligned perfectly with Lana’s – the Empire and the greater galaxy as a whole came first – but things had changed, and not just because of Theron Shan.

_“I’ve got a name for you,”_ Shae announced, without further preamble. _“She’s a bounty hunter, goes by the name of Strix.”_

“Mando?” Miranza asked. She tried and failed to put a face to the name. _Strix._ If memory served her, the strix were from mythology – a bird of ill omen. She hoped that wasn’t meant to be prophetic.

_“Nayc.”_ Shae shook her head, and if Miranza hadn’t already recognized the Mando’a word for “no” she would have understood the older woman from the gesture. _“Freelancer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to join the Great Hunt the next time one’s called. She’s not political, goes where the credits are, but from what I’ve heard she keeps to her own code.”_

It sounded like Shae respected the other bounty hunter, but Miranza didn’t know what to make of that: the qualities that endeared one to the Mandalorians were not necessarily the same qualities that translated well to outsiders. Miranza knew Shae had her own code of honour, in addition to following the Mandalorian code, but she also knew the older woman was no fan of the Republic. She was helping Miranza out because she still felt she owed the former Imperial agent a debt for involving her in the fight against Revan, and that didn’t necessarily mean Shae cared about what happened to Theron Shan. Granted, Miranza seemed to recall the Mando appreciating his guts – no doubt her opinion of him had skyrocketed when she realized he was fighting Revan after having only recently undergone captivity and torture – but Shae had made it very clear that she was helping _Miranza_ out, not her Pub boyfriend.

_“Theron’s probably safe with her,”_ Shae went on, oblivious to Miranza’s thoughts. _“She brings back live bounties only, doesn’t do carbonite freezing or disintegrations. So long as he’s not too much of a pain in the_ shebs _she won’t rough him up none.”_

Theron Shan, _not_ being a pain in the ass? Miranza sighed. When did that ever happen? Still, Shae’s words gave her hope. It sounded like this Strix person could be reasonable, and that Theron wasn’t in too much danger, aside from whatever mess his smart mouth got him into. She tried not to think about _that_ too much. If anyone could make a situation worse just by opening his mouth, it would be Theron.

“Do you know where she’s taking him?” Miranza asked, pushing her worries to the back of her mind. “Or who hired her?”

The door to the captain’s quarters whooshed open, admitting Vector, who came in carrying two mugs of what smelled like tea. The Joiner gave his wife a small smile, handing her one of the mugs, and sat down gently on the bed beside her. He was still dressed in the sleepwear he’d donned before coming to bed, but he looked very awake and very alert, and Miranza suspected he had been up for a while. She mouthed a silent _thank you_ to him before turning her attention back to the holo-image. As she’d guessed the mug contained tea, the rich, spicy-sweet concoction Vector favoured. She took a sip, savouring the bite on her tongue, her gaze focused on the holocomm.

_“Hard to say for certain,”_ Shae replied. She turned, speaking to someone off-screen, a masculine voice replying to her in Mando’a. Turning back, she shrugged. _“You kids have a bunch of bounties on your heads. Three on you –”_

“Wait, three?” Miranza interrupted her, confused.

Shae nodded. “Lek, _three. An anonymous one out of Glee Anselm, Darth Zhorrid, and Republic military, which I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole.”_

Miranza blinked. Pashon Cortess had already been dealt with; she felt bad about it, but her husband had arranged for the young Alderaanian nobleman to join his family as a part of the Oroboro Nest. On the one hand, stripping the man of his autonomy like that and treating the Killiks as some sort of punishment, rather than the gift Vector believed them to be, was a horrible way to deal with one’s enemies, and one would really have thought she’d learned that particular lesson already. On the other hand, she’d already let the man walk away once, back when Hunter had sicced him on her. She wasn’t making that same mistake a second time. But if House Cortess had been dealt with, that still left –

“What about Fa’athra?” Vector asked, voicing her question for her. He took a sip of his tea, one hand resting lightly at the small of Miranza’s back, giving her strength.

_“Rumour has it Fa’athra double-crossed the wrong Mando a month or so ago,”_ Shae answered. It was difficult to tell through the flickering holo-image but Miranza thought she detected a faint smirk tugging at the older woman’s lips. _“The junkyards on Nal Hutta are under new management now.”_

Vector chuckled into his tea and stood, drifting to the door. Miranza already missed the warmth of him by her side and would have called him back to her save that she didn’t wish to appear needy. With Theron missing she was feeling overly emotional and overwrought about everything, and it was taking all of her training and self-discipline to keep herself under control.

“Ah, I see,” she said, after a moment’s consideration. Rekka and Barrazhat had known about the bounties Amrielle had finagled against her; it wouldn’t have surprised her in the least to discover that the two of them had decided to do something about them. _The wrong Mando, indeed._ “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer Hutt.”

Shae laughed, nodding, before returning to the question at hand. Her expression sobered. _“Your little Pub boy is also a wanted man – no surprises there, I guess?”_ At Miranza’s noncommittal shrug she continued, _“Based on who took the job and what I’ve been able to dig up on her, my best guess is that he’s going to Coruscant. Good news for him, bad news for you.”_

Miranza bit her lip, thinking hard. Shae wasn’t wrong there. Theron would be safe on Coruscant – probably, insofar as he was ever safe anywhere – but that made it more difficult for her and Vector to get to him. On the other hand, if they had to go to Coruscant anyway to save Theron’s ass, maybe they’d have time to swing by the prison and pick up Micah, too. A two-for-one-deal, if you will. Stars, maybe for once they’d get lucky and Theron and Micah would be locked up in the same general vicinity. The galaxy couldn’t possibly be that kind.

But Coruscant … Coruscant would be tricky. Far better if they could get to Theron and rescue him before he made it there. She closed her eyes, calculating their speed and distance, doing the mental math required before programming the hyperdrive. The _Mercurial_ was an exceptionally fast ship with top-tier Imperial stealth technology; odds were good that this Strix woman’s own spaceship was nowhere near as powerful. Of course, they had no way of knowing how many fighters Strix had working for her, or if it was just her and Theron all alone on her ship.

_One step at a time, Agent,_ Miranza told herself firmly, her mental voice sounding an awful lot like her old handler, Keeper.

“Shae,” she said out loud, “Would you happen to know Strix’s ship?”

_“I’ll do you one better,_ vod,” Shae said, grinning broadly, _“I’ll give you its signal, signature and last-known coordinates.”_

O o O o O

The sound of blaster-fire woke Theron from his mid-afternoon nap.

He sat up, blinking, and tried to follow the battle that appeared to be taking place deeper into the spaceship. Not for the first time he cursed his unfamiliarity with the ship’s layout; his little forays to the ‘fresher and back hadn’t given him much idea of where he was, and despite his vast knowledge of various spacecrafts he had never been able to place his captor’s ride. Now that lack of insight meant he couldn’t figure out where the fighting was happening: if he was in the cargo hold – that much he was sure about – and he was certain the ship couldn’t be too large, then did that mean the fight was taking place on the bridge? The airlock? The crew quarters? Was this a mutiny, or was he being rescued?

Theron figured a mutiny was pretty unlikely. What little he’d seen of his hostess’s crew all seemed pretty solid; if anything, he suspected she was less the leader, and more just their spokesperson. Granted it was entirely possible that they were fighting over his bounty – it felt a little pre-emptive, given that Theron had yet to be handed over to any paying customer, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a seemingly-cohesive crew broke down over financial matters.

No, a rescue seemed more likely. Theron had known all along that Vector and Miranza would be looking for him, and while it was distressing to think that they were wasting time and resources in trying to find him when they should have been focused on getting Caedan Savarr out of Arcann’s clutches, he really couldn’t imagine them doing anything else. _Lana must be pissed._ From the sound of things they’d brought the two Mandalorians along for the ride, too – maybe even Kaliyo as well. That made sense: they’d need the numbers if they were planning on taking his captor’s ship by force.

That _did_ sound like what was happening, though. Even without his implants to enhance his hearing Theron could make out curses and shouting, and a woman’s voice – he recognized it as belonging to the dark-haired woman with the scarred face – rising above the others, ordering them to _hold the ship, dammit!_

Theron stood, brushing the wrinkles out of his trousers. His cage was still cold but adrenaline was beginning to course through him, warming him and filling him with restless energy. Underneath the excitement of being rescued was another sort of warmth, one Theron was less familiar with: the relief and contentment at knowing his lovers had come for him. Not that he’d truly expected Miranza or Vector to leave him hanging, but Theron wasn’t really used to being able to rely on backup.

The door to the cargo hold flew open and an armoured body came sailing into view, landing crumpled against the wall a few feet outside of Theron’s cage. He recognized one of his captors, a burly Twi’lek who’d played escort duty to him on his regular ‘fresher excursions. The man was dead, his face and lekku covered in blaster-burns, and Theron felt a momentary twinge of dismay. His captors hadn’t been cruel to him, hadn’t even been unnecessarily violent or menacing; given the choice, he wouldn’t have wanted them dead. Not that he’d been given the opportunity to pass that information on to Vector or Miranza, however, and he knew the two of them had to be furious.

Theron thought, briefly, of the compound on Alderaan where Vector had been held captive, and of the violence Miranza had wrought there in order to get him out. What was happening now on the spaceship was no less than he had come to expect from her. His captors had signed their own death warrants when they had taken him from Asylum.

When the two soldiers stepped into view Theron didn’t recognize their armour, but previous experiences with his lovers led him to suspect they had opted for disguises. It was easy enough to find armour that wouldn’t immediately lead investigators back to their alliance. The soldiers moved towards him, one of them stepping neatly over the body of the dead Twi’lek, their blaster rifles sweeping the cargo hold for signs of more enemies. It was only when they saw that Theron was the only one left alive that they stopped, and one of them – the same one who’d stepped over the Twi’lek – raised their hand in an all-clear gesture.

It wasn’t until the two soldiers parted, admitting a familiar woman into the cargo hold, that Theron realized his mistake.

This wasn’t a rescue.

This was so much worse.

The beautiful green-skinned Nautolan woman smiled at Theron’s recognition, her jet-black eyes glittering with malicious delight.

“Hello, Theron,” Amrielle said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is from Sarah McLachlan, "Into the Fire." I had originally planned on naming it after the Meat Loaf song "Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire)" but thought that was a little too obvious, since I wanted the ending to be a surprise.
> 
> I'm not happy with this chapter, but I've been toying with it for a while now and I can't get it into the shape I wanted. I just needed to get past this part - the end reveal - so that I could move on to the next bit.
> 
> Mando’a:
> 
> _Suy cuy'gar_ \- Hello, literally "You’re still alive"  
>  _Nayc_ \- No, negative answer  
>  _Shebs_ \- Backside, rear, buttocks  
>  _Lek_ \- Shortened version of _elek_ , which means yes ( _lek_ would be equivalent to "yeah"  
>  _Vod_ \- Brother, sister, comrade, mate


	31. Sleeping in the Devil's Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron begins to discover how bad things can get and Miranza strikes a bargain with a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for unwanted sexual contact.

_**Unknown Space, Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The bright lights hurt Theron’s head.

It took him what felt like an eternity to open his eyes after regaining consciousness. He woke up to blinding whiteness, a searing, blazing light as brilliant and uncaring as the twin suns on Tatooine. His head ached abominably and he knew the pain would only grow worse once his eyes were open. More than that, however, Theron’s eyelids felt as though they weighed more than a crate of durasteel, and he was exhausted just by opening them. When he did finally manage to convince his eyes to open he was left blinking through a sudden surge of tears as the twin suns behind his eyelids resolved themselves into a pair of floor-mounted spotlights, both sets aimed directly at him.

As his vision gradually adjusted and the pain in his head subsided somewhat Theron began to take stock of his situation. He found himself strapped to an upright T-framed table that immediately put him in mind of the interrogation room he and Master Zho had been trapped in when they had gone after Darth Mekhis, only this time he was alone, Master Zho was dead, and there would be no rebooting his implants to free himself.

He was also naked, so that was … different. More reminiscent of the _Ascendant Spear_ than the _Sun Razer._

With the twin spotlights both trained on him and his naked body propped up like he was on display Theron felt very exposed and very, very vulnerable. He also felt strangely indifferent, as if being concerned about his own wellbeing was simply too much effort. He couldn’t even muster up the energy to struggle against the bands holding him in place; like the effort of opening his eyes, moving – even just to try and turn his head enough to look around – seemed to require more energy and drive than he possessed. A glance at his left arm revealed the likely culprit: a needle embedded in the back of his hand, held in place by surgical tape, with a length of tubing that fed the contents of a nearby bag directly into his veins. Now that he was aware of the IV Theron felt a strange cold sensation filtering through his hand and up his arm, leaving him numb and lax. He had no idea what was in that IV bag, but Theron recognized that his dullness and indifference were far outside the norm for him and suspected he was being drugged with something that would keep him pliable and helpless. Under normal circumstances Theron’s implants would have scrubbed the drugs out of his system, but his implants had been offline since he was first grabbed on Asylum and he had been unable to get them to reboot.

Theron knew he should feel more concerned. He was naked, bound, and the last thing he remembered was that crazy bitch Amrielle staring at him through the pinkish-red haze of the force-field on his cage. He’d been expecting a rescue and instead had found himself back in her clutches, and that should be extremely worrying for him … but he just didn’t care. And it wasn’t the familiar indifference born of depression or exhaustion, where his own welfare ceased to be of any importance to him, but rather something artificial and separate from himself that he couldn’t summon up the energy to push through. Both Theron’s mind and body felt as though he was swimming through some dense, viscous liquid that clung to him, dragging him down and making it impossible to think straight.

The back of his hand itched around the needle fixed in his skin and he couldn’t even be bothered to try and sort out a way to scratch at it.

He tried to remember what had happened after Amrielle’s greeting but the memories slipped through his grasp. He remembered the attack on the bounty hunter’s ship and the certainty he’d felt that it was Vector and Miranza coming to his rescue, only for his hopes to be dashed the instant he saw the Nautolan’s face. After that there was nothing. Had he been knocked unconscious? Stunned? Had she used the shock collar on him? He had no clue. He remembered Amrielle’s face, that gloating smile and the malice in her eyes, and then … not even darkness. It was as though the time between seeing her outside his cell and waking up strapped to the interrogation table didn’t exist.

The harsh white lighting washed him out, left him looking grey-skinned and vulnerable. So far as Theron could tell he had no new injuries, and the bruises he’d acquired through his capture on Asylum had long since faded during his captivity. The air around him was cool and the spotlights gave off surprisingly little heat. There were hard metal bands wrapped around his wrists, ankles, thighs and across his chest, strapping him to the table; he thought, with the proper tools, he would have been able to free himself – but the thought was academic at best, as he had neither the tools nor the energy. The shock collar weighed heavy around his neck, digging into the skin at the base of his skull in a way that would have been uncomfortable for him if it weren’t for the lassitude that permeated his body. His arms should have ached from being held extended for so long and the bands that pressed into his skin were no doubt chafing him and leaving behind bruises, but he couldn’t feel it. He was aware of the pressure against his skin and knew that something was touching him, but it didn’t translate into discomfort the way it should have. It was a strange lack of sensation, one he suspected junkies would have happily paid a small fortune to achieve.

Theron heard the sound of booted feet stomping towards him, and even the curiosity he felt about that was mild and muted. He couldn’t be bothered to lift his head towards the sound; instead he raised his eyes just enough to observe two large armoured figures stepping into his field of vision. The one on his left was a Gamorrean, the one on his right a Houk; both, he thought, were male, although he wouldn’t have sworn to it. They came and stood in front of him, one on either side, turning towards the light and taking up guarding stances.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Theron greeted them, but his tongue felt strangely thick in his mouth and the words came out sounding more like _Haygguswuzzup._ They ignored him and he couldn’t be bothered to repeat himself.

There was a loud staticky sound from overhead, like the crackling of a loudspeaker coming to life, and then a familiar woman’s voice could be heard: _“Ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure, the subject of today’s auction: Theron Shan. Formerly an agent of the Republic Strategic Information Service, Mister Shan now operates outside Republic authority but is no doubt a font of valuable intelligence regarding both his former employers as well as Republic interests in general.”_ Amrielle – for that was who it was – coughed delicately before adding, in the smug tone of a woman laying down her very best cards, _“Of particular interest to my patrons is Mister Shan’s rather intriguing parentage. Not only is he the son of the former Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Satele Shan, but his father is none other than the Supreme Commander of the Republic Military himself, Jace Malcom.”_

In spite of the numbing drugs feeding into his system Theron felt a shiver work through him at Amrielle’s words, from the realization that he was apparently being auctioned off to the reveal of his parentage. In all fairness his relationship to Satele was arguably one of the worst-kept secrets in the Republic, but it wasn’t common knowledge that Jace was his father. Theron had enough enemies on his own without bringing his estranged parents into the mess, and yet now Amrielle had done precisely that. He should’ve felt a lot more worried than he did.

Theron’s two bodyguards shifted, turning to look slightly behind him, and he heard the sound of high heels striking the ground in a slow, measured pace that was strangely familiar to him. He felt a faint desire to turn to follow their gaze but he didn’t need to be able to see her to know that Amrielle was the one they were watching; he recognized her gait and the click of her heeled boots on the metal flooring. There was a small surging sensation in his hand as the IV flooded more drugs into his system and even that faint desire to look towards Amrielle disappeared, replaced by dull disinterest. Theron knew he should be more concerned, that he should take more interest in his surroundings and his captor, but it was impossible to fight against the stupor weighing him down. He felt tired and stupid and indifferent, and the only thing that really interested him was the possibility of taking a nap; uncomfortable as his position was, he actually thought he might be able to fall asleep that way.

Amrielle moved to stand in front of him, a few steps ahead of the Houk, and the smile she sent in Theron’s direction was equal parts smug and triumphant. The Nautolan woman was dressed to kill in a tailored rose-coloured business suit, matching beads in her green head-tresses, and she wore a headset with a microphone at her mouth into which she spoke.

“Now that the goods are on display,” she said, smirking at Theron, “the bidding may begin. If there are any questions or requests please feel free to direct them to the address on your screen. _Not you,”_ she snapped in Theron’s direction, when he managed to open his mouth but before he could get a single coherent word out. Amrielle jerked her chin towards something in the not-so-far-off distance, between the two spotlights, and added, “Smile for the holocams, Mister Shan.”

Theron could barely manage to lift his lips in a half-grimace, but Amrielle gave him another smirk and tapped a button on the side of her headset, drifting towards a console that he could only dimly make out just outside the corona of light. The console was mostly cloaked in darkness, but he thought he could see the lights from the screen although it was impossible for him to tell what was _on_ the screen. She stood in front of the console for a few minutes, head tilted downwards as she studied a screen he couldn’t read and could barely see, and one perfectly-manicured nail tapped against her lips in thought.

“And just like that, the bids start pouring in,” she said, delighted. She cast him a sly look, speaking in a confidential tone, “It’s not even about the credits, you understand? My patrons are willing to pay small fortunes to get their hands on you, but what’s much more interesting – to _me,_ at least – is what they want you for.”

She went back to studying the screen and her nose wrinkled delicately at something she saw there. She hit a couple of keys, her hand sweeping to the left.

“ _Bor_ -ing,” she said in a sing-song voice. “I would’ve expected a Moff to be more creative than that, but no, he just wants to” – she glanced down as if in confirmation, her disinterest plain – “offer you a clean death. How dull is that?” She sighed. “And no reply from any of the surviving former Dark Council members – that is a shame. That one Darth, the former slave, she does such _interesting_ sane.

_She’s completely nuts,_ Theron realized, watching Amrielle smirking and strutting around in front of her console. He remembered the absolute terror and dismay he’d felt back on the bounty hunter’s ship, when she had been the one to approach his cage instead of Miranza or Vector; those emotions were gone now, partly erased by the apathy that filled him as a result of whichever drugs she had pumping into his system, but his own realization that he was dealing with a madwoman also helped to diminish his fear. He didn’t know what had happened to Amrielle between when he and Miranza had finally escaped her clutches on Alderaan and now, but the cunning, calculating woman he’d contended with before was gone. Now, instead, he was faced with a chortling lunatic, and while her obvious insanity made her unpredictable and dangerous, it also made him pity her somewhat. Had the destruction of the Star Cabal and the failure of her plans really had such a devastating effect on her mental health? Or was something else responsible for Amrielle’s deterioration?

The monster who had been dogging their heels for so long, who had been tormenting Miranza for months, was just a sick woman with far too much power available to her.

_What in the name of the Force had happened to her?_

Theron opened his mouth to try and ask that very question but found the words stuck in his throat. It was too much effort to organize his thoughts enough to speak, and even if he could form some semblance of a coherent sentence, his lips and tongue refused to cooperate. His mind was dull and as soon as he managed to gather his thoughts together they slipped away from him again, the words dying in his mouth. He could barely cling to a single clear thought, much less string the words together to ask as complicated a question as _What the hell is wrong with you, Amrielle?_

Oblivious to Theron’s struggle Amrielle continued chuckling over whatever she saw on her console, rose-red nails dancing across the keypad. Something in particular kept making her giggle, the sound of it strange and almost coquettish, and she kept shooting amused, speculative glances in Theron’s direction. She reminded him, very distantly, of when he had been a child on Tython, before he’d been sent away, and some of the other kids had looked at him - specifically, the way the kids had looked when they’d been discussing their various crushes. It was silly, juvenile behaviour, something Theron had very limited experience in, and it was strangely out of sorts for what he remembered of Amrielle. It was as though she was thinking immature, salacious thoughts, and given that she’d had nothing but impatience for Samar’s behaviour towards him, Theron felt completely bewildered by Amrielle’s interests now.

“I’ve no idea what all these people see in you, Mister Shan,” she said, hiding a giggle behind her hand, “but there seems to be a recurring theme with some of your would-be purchasers’ questions. Tell me,” she continued, turning to him, “Are you fertile?”

Theron choked, blinking stupidly at her, and Amrielle giggled harder, like a damned schoolgirl. She tapped the microphone on her headset.

“To the best of my knowledge there’s no conclusive proof one way or another regarding Mister Shan’s reproductive capabilities,” she said, speaking into the microphone in an officious tone of voice. She was still looking at him and Theron discovered that, drugs or no drugs, he was still capable of blushing. “While Satele Shan’s little bastard has no little bastards of his own that I am aware of, it is worth noting that Mister Shan’s long-term female partner is as barren as Ziost. Perhaps with a different partner – one who isn’t _broken_ – the results would be different.”

This time around Theron managed to bare his teeth at her in an obvious snarl, anger on Miranza’s behalf momentarily overwhelming the drugs in his system. How fucking _dare_ this crazy Nautolan witch say that Miranza was anything less than perfect simply because she’d had the ability to have children taken away from her? How fucking dare she? The fact that neither he nor Miranza even wanted children of their own was irrelevant: Amrielle had no right to suggest that Miranza’s infertility – which had been done _to_ her without her consent – made her broken. And the rest of it ... seriously, what the hell? Were people bidding on him for his - what did she call it? - his reproductive capabilities? Were people interested in him because of his genetics, or just because they wanted to fuck him? Did they think he was just going to be some kind of quiet, complacent little slave? He was aware he was making a sort of growling sound, his teeth still bared, and he forced himself to rein it in, not wanting to give away how much this line of questioning upset him.

Amrielle seemed delighted by Theron’s outrage although her attention was quickly drawn back to her console.

“Hmm, that _is_ a valid question,” she mused out loud, giving Theron another speculative glance. Her gaze dipped lower, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “Tell me, Mister Shan, are you …” She made a vague gesture downwards. “Physically capable?”

Swallowing his indignation, Theron closed his eyes, uncomfortably aware of the heated flush in his cheeks. If he hadn’t felt vulnerable and embarrassed about his nakedness before, he certainly did now. The fact that he knew she had holorecorders trained on him only enhanced his embarrassment; he had no idea how many people were watching this and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Ugh, humans are so _hairy,”_ Amrielle muttered, still staring at his crotch as if somehow expecting him to do something interesting. She sighed, sounding disgusted, before gesturing at her bodyguards. “Go on, show the cameras.”

The two bodyguards exchanged glances, looking at each other uncertainly before turning to Theron, who was trying to pretend he didn’t have a horrible suspicion he knew what Amrielle wanted them to do. Apparently they were picking up on it, too, however, because the Houk turned back to Amrielle and shook his massive head.

“Ain’t gettin’ paid enough for that,” the Houk grumbled, staring fixedly at the ground.

The Gamorrean, on the other hand, just shrugged his broad shoulders, and to Theron’s complete surprise and horror he reached down and wrapped one meaty hand around Theron’s cock, giving him a few quick, awkward tugs. Theron would have sworn his body couldn’t possible be capable of responding – he could barely even _feel_ the Gamorrean’s hand on him, what with the drugs numbing his body, and he couldn’t think of less arousing circumstances – but after a few half-hearted strokes his cock stiffened to life. Theron closed his eyes again and willed the floor to open up and swallow him whole, or for lightning to shoot down from the sky and obliterate them all where they stood. (Or, at the very least, for the kriffing holorecorders to stop recording.)

“Least you could do is buy me dinner beforehand,” Theron muttered, affecting a nonchalant tone utterly at odds with how violated and uncomfortable he felt. The words came out garbled, little more than a scarcely-coherent mumble. The Gamorrean glared at him and tightened his grip on Theron’s cock, making Theron wince. The bravado was worth it, though, to Theron’s mind; even with the numbness coursing through him he felt horribly violated and embarrassed, and there was a very large part of him – that part which had never fully recovered from the abuse he’d suffered at Samar’s hands years ago and was struggling mightily with what was happening to him now – that wanted to run screaming from the situation.

Amrielle waved vaguely in Theron’s direction, turning back towards the holorecorder, a fixed smile in place on her lovely face. “See? Perfectly functional.” She glanced back at the Gamorrean who was still awkwardly stroking Theron and hissed, _“You can stop now.”_

The Gamorrean snatched his hand away, wiping it off on his thigh. Beside him the Houk laughed out loud, although he turned it into an awkward cough when the Gamorrean turned to glare at him.

Swallowing hard around his growing nausea Theron kept up the brave front. “What, not gonna finish me off? Don’t you know that sort of thing sets a guy back, like, three days?”

This time around his speech was even more mumbled than before, but apparently it was clear enough for the Gamorrean to understand him, because the man let out a porcine squeal of indignation and backhanded Theron hard enough to rock his head to the side. Theron could barely feel it and yet he could taste blood in his mouth and when he spat some of it out he heard a piece of broken tooth bouncing off the floor. He managed to get some of the blood on the Gamorrean’s boots, causing the massive man to raise his hand in warning before Amrielle snarled at him to stand down. The bodyguard hesitated just long enough that Theron was certain he was about to get belted again but then, beady little eyes narrowing and nostrils flaring, the Gamorrean lowered his hand, fixing Theron with a hard glare.

_Dissension in the ranks._ Normally this would have been something Theron might have attempted to use against Amrielle – that the Houk balked against filling specific orders, that the Gamorrean paused before deciding against striking Theron again. Theron knew how to use that discord to his own advantage and had done so on numerous occasions, and yet … he just couldn’t summon up the interest to even make the attempt. He didn’t care. Apathy was his chief emotion, overriding the vulnerability he should have felt at being naked and bound, or the embarrassment and sheer panic that should have overtaken him the instant the Gamorrean touched him. His mouth filled with blood again and there was a hole where his newly-chipped tooth had been and yet he couldn’t feel a thing: no fear, no humiliation, no pain. He couldn’t even be bothered to wonder what drug it was that was causing him to be so disinterested in his own fate.

Satisfied that her two burly thugs weren’t going to damage the merchandise, Amrielle went back to staring at her console screen, a delighted expression on her lovely green face.

“You know, Mister Shan, if the credits alone were all that interested me this auction would have been a fantastic idea,” she commented, gaze fixed on the screen. “But what really makes me happy is how creative your potential owners are being. It’s not enough to offer me a ridiculous amount of money in exchange for you – you should _see_ all the awful things your enemies want to do to you. You’ve made a lot of people very unhappy, did you know that? I’m having a terrible time deciding who to sell you to.”

“Here’s a thought,” Theron said, only it came out sounding more like _Eersathaw,_ his lips and tongue refusing to cooperate. He continued anyway, forcing the words out, “Instead of selling me, you could let me go. That’ll _really_ teach me a lesson.”

Amrielle pursed her lips and shook her head, the delicate rose-coloured beads in her head-tresses clicking against each other gently.

“Oh, Theron,” she said, in the forced-patient tone of a mother grown exasperated with her willful, obtuse children, “Where’s the fun in that?”

O o O o O

_  
**Dromund Kaas, Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion**  
_

The estate of Darth Occlus lay secured behind massive duracrete walls in the jungles of Dromund Kaas, just outside of Kaas City. As if to lend further proof to the isolationist nature of the Dark Lord, the road leading to the estate was in a state of ill repair and the jungle was threatening to overtake it, heavy vines growing thick across the road and wild animals roaming the path. Miranza rode her speeder in as far as she could but was soon forced to abandon it, leaving it on the side of the road and walking the rest of the way in.

On foot and alone, Miranza felt immensely vulnerable, and her Imperial uniform – ill-fitting and uncomfortable – provided little in the way of protection. The only benefit to wearing her old uniform was that no one questioned her presence: not the military police at the spaceport, not the guards at the gatehouse, not the random patrols who swept the jungles outside of Kaas City. But she had outgrown her old Imperial uniform in more than just the metaphorical sense, and she would have felt much more comfortable wearing some kind of heavy armour.

As she approached the gates the fear coiling inside Miranza’s stomach twisted into a tighter knot, her mouth going dry. She had avoided the Sith as much as possible since leaving Imperial Intelligence – Lana Beniko didn’t count; Lana was easily the most reasonable Sith lord in the galaxy, so much so that Miranza had to remind herself that she _was_ Sith – and now here she was, walking into the stronghold of one of the most powerful Dark Lords left in the galaxy. Walking in alone, no less.

Vector had wanted to accompany her, of course. She would have felt bolstered by his presence, but Miranza knew she was taking a gamble that Darth Occlus would remember her; if she was wrong about the Sith, then Vector’s solid warmth by her side would serve no purpose other than to give the Sith lord another target. If Darth Occlus didn’t remember her or decided she was no longer interested in Miranza’s service then there was nothing Vector or anyone could do to stop her from killing Miranza where she stood. Far better that she speak to the Sith lord alone; this way, at least, if the worst should happen then Vector would survive and could go after Theron on his own – although Miranza had no idea how he would be able to do that without Darth Occlus’s assistance.

She didn’t have time to worry about that. _Theron_ didn’t have time.

The memory of Amrielle’s holorecording rose, unbidden, to the forefront of Miranza’s mind: Theron, naked and bound to an interrogation table, his glazed eyes staring unseeing at the holocam. He’d had no injuries that Miranza could see, but the way he hung there, listless, lights on the shock collar blinking every few seconds to show that it was active …

Miranza shook her head. She didn’t have _time_ for this.

The guards at the gate watched her approach, their faces unreadable behind identical gleaming faceplates. She couldn’t even tell which species they were, or if Darth Occlus had had them augmented in some way. Miranza had heard stories, rumours, about the experiments Darth Occlus performed; she didn’t know if those experiments were limited to slaves or volunteers, or if everyone in her employ ended up in her operating room at one point or another. She knew there were monsters roaming the jungles around Occlus’s estate, and that those monsters had been created by Occlus herself using Sith alchemy and cybernetics, but Miranza would have been perfectly content for those monsters to remain an urban legend.

The gates opened and Miranza continued her hike towards the estate. Her uniform felt too heavy and too tight, and the heat of the jungle left her feeling sticky and tired. Sweat pooled in her armpits, between her thighs, and she wiped the back of one gloved hand across her forehead, smoothing back hair that had gone frizzy from the humidity. In the distance she heard an animal shriek as it hunted, and the sound was unlike anything she was familiar with. She knew from Intelligence reports that even the plants and animals on Darth Occlus’s estate had been subject to her experimentation, and she was in no particular hurry to meet up with the evidence of those reports.

_“Strix is dead,_ vod.” The memory of Barrazhat’s voice filled Miranza’s mind, his crisp, clear Imperial accent shaded with worry for Theron and sadness for her and Vector. _“Her whole crew was wiped out and Theron is just_ gone. _He was definitely there, though. Whoever killed Strix and her people must’ve nabbed him.”_

Amrielle’s gloating message had come a few days after Barrazhat and Rekka had contacted her and Vector about the destruction on Strix’s ship. Terrified that she was about to watch the Nautolan woman murdering her lover, Miranza had forced herself to sit through Amrielle’s recording – three hours of Theron hanging limp and uncomprehending while Amrielle extolled his virtues to her unseen clientele. Miranza had been glad not to witness Theron’s death, but watching him being auctioned off not to the highest bidder, but to the one guaranteed to be the most maliciously cruel and evil … that was almost as bad.

And then, almost a week later, Lana had contacted Miranza and Vector. The normally cool and calm Sith lord had sounded on the verge of panic.

_“Darth Jadzira won the auction,”_ Lana had informed them.

_“That name sounds familiar to us,”_ Vector had said. He had been calm, his fingers curling around Miranza’s, lending her his strength. _“Should we know her?”_

_“She and her father were Jedi-hunters; they made quite the name for themselves and had rather a large body count by the time he died. Afterwards, some time later, she was a contender for the Dark Council, but Darth Marr favoured Occlus instead of her. It is said she is heir to the Dread Masters’ legacy, that she uses the Force to inspire fear and madness in her enemies. And …”_ Lana had hesitated, and Vector and Miranza had exchanged worried glances.

_“And?”_ Vector had prompted her gently as Miranza’s grip tightened around his fingers.

_“And her father – her Sith Master – was slain on Alderaan. By then-Captain Jace Malcom.”_

There had been more, of course: Lana had been in command of Sith Intelligence and she still had access to many of her old files and contacts. The moment Miranza had informed her of Amrielle’s auction the Sith lord had begun pouring through her resources in search of intelligence on Theron’s possible captors. Unsurprisingly for a woman who had been active for close to half a century Darth Jadzira’s file was massive, detailing a long and bloody career against the Republic. Unlike Lana, Jadzira could not be said to be one of the more sane or reasonable Sith lords, and in addition to her various career highlights there were reports on her extracurricular activities. Lana had only managed to get a few sentences in before Vector had quietly requested that she stop.

Darth Jadzira was a monster and a sadist who professionally hunted Jedi and whose father had died in combat against a Republic trooper. Theron Shan was the son of a Jedi and the very same trooper responsible for Jadzira’s father’s death. Amrielle had picked her clientele very, very well.

_“Darth Jadzira maintains her base of operations on a destroyer-class Imperial fleet ship,”_ Lana had informed them. She’d been able to provide a rough rundown of Jadzira’s ship and its crew, although she couldn’t be certain of the precise numbers the Dark Lord had serving her. Darth Jadzira alone was more than Miranza or Vector could hope to take on in a fight, never mind an entire ship filled with loyal soldiers. Even with ninety-five percent of the ship devoted to hedonism and self-indulgence that still left too many highly loyal, exceptionally well-trained and incredibly powerful enemies between them and Theron.

But there had been one single, shining hope: Darth Occlus.

A former slave whose Force sensitivity landed her on Korriban, the Miralukan woman known as Lord Inzharra Kallig earned the title of Darth Occlus – given her by Darth Marr himself – after destroying her own master and her master’s master, seizing his seat on the Dark Council. After Darth Marr had died on Zakuul – the same time that Jedi Master Caedan Savarr assassinated Emperor Valkorion – Darth Occlus had chosen to step down from the Dark Council rather than assume its leadership, retiring from Imperial politics and leaving the Empire in the hands of Empress Acina. Once upon a time, however, Occlus and Jadzira had been the bitterest of rivals, and while Darth Occlus might not have any interest in fighting against Zakuul or seizing power in the Empire, it was possible she could be persuaded to help rescue Theron – if only because it meant taking something away from Darth Jadzira.

And as it happened, Darth Occlus had long ago established her interest in Miranza. Miranza just had to hope that interest hadn’t waned.

The guards at the main entrance to Darth Occlus’s estate wore the same featureless visors as the ones at the gate. They stood at-ease, one on either side of the entryway, their black armour pristine and gleaming, red Imperial cogs on their shoulder-plates. They didn’t order Miranza to stop and wait, nor did they subject her to a search; she was armed – it would have been insane to make the trek through the jungle from Kaas City to Occlus’s estate without having a weapon of some form on her – but they didn’t ask her to hand her weapons over. One of them stepped away from the door, gloved hand going up to a transmitter at their ear.

“The agent is here,” they said, their voice heavily modulated by their helmet. As with the other guards it was impossible to determine their species or gender, but they were very tall and very broad-shouldered, and Miranza suspected they were not human. They looked Miranza over and nodded, and the massive double doors opened to admit her.

Smoothing down the front of her uniform – which did nothing to remove the wrinkles or the sweat-stains she had acquired on her journey in – Miranza stepped in through the doorway and into Darth Occlus’s lair.

It was several hours later before Miranza was permitted to leave again, and this time she was escorted back to the Dromund Kaas spaceport, two of Darth Occlus’s nameless, faceless soldiers trailing her. Her hands shook and her lungs burned but she managed to keep herself together for the length of the journey. She didn’t once need either of her guards to assist her, although she had a few close calls as she fought to regain complete control over her own body. All her nerve-endings felt like they were firing at once and her muscles didn’t appear to be responding the way she was accustomed to; she felt as though she was a puppet and an inexperienced child was the one handling her strings.

Vector met her at their ship, his eyes widening as she approached him. The two guards bowed to her before turning and melting away, no doubt headed back to the Dark Lord’s estate. Vector looked her over, one hand reaching out as if to touch her, only for him to drop his hand back at his side, his fists clenching.

“She agreed,” Miranza rasped out. Vector flinched at the sound of her voice; she would have flinched, too, but she kept herself in check. She sounded as though she had been screaming for the better part of the afternoon. “Darth Occlus has agreed to help us rescue Theron.”

“Beloved,” Vector said slowly, bringing one fist up to press against his lips, “What have you done?”

Miranza pushed past him, heading inside the _Mercurial._ “I made a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sleeping in the Devil's Bed" is by Daniel Lanois.


	32. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue, in one form or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for slavery, heavily implied abuse/sexual assault/rape, non-consensual drug use. (If I've missed something that you think should be listed here, _please_ let me know.)

_**Imperial Space, Five Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Darth Jadzira’s personal dreadnought loomed up before the viewscreen of Darth Occlus’s interceptor-class spaceship, highlighting – as if such a demonstration was even necessary – how outmanned and outgunned they were by comparison. Darth Occlus, seated in the captain’s chair with her massive Dashade servant standing directly behind her, appeared unconcerned, but Vector had long ago discovered how difficult it could be to read the Sith. This Sith, in particular, with the elegant bone-coloured mask covering her vestigial eyes and her cold, hard expressions, proved especially challenging. Even her aura seemed mute to Vector, giving him no indication as to how she felt or whether she was as nervous as he was.

Equally challenging, it seemed, was Vector’s wife. Like the large, red-skinned creature that stood behind Darth Occlus, Miranza had taken up a post within touching distance of the powerful Sith lord, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes fixed on the viewscreen. Her expression was closed-off and distant, and had been from the moment she had returned from Darth Occlus’s estate on Dromund Kaas. Then, Vector had been able to read terror and pain in her aura, but she refused to discuss the matter with him, saying only that she had made a deal with Darth Occlus in order to rescue Theron. The nature of that deal remained a mystery to Vector, but as the days had gone by and their preparations to board Darth Jadzira’s ship had progressed, Miranza had grown increasingly silent and remote, and not even Vector’s best diplomatic attempts could get her to open up to him.

The day of the rescue operation, another of Darth Occlus’s servants had arrived at their ship carrying packages for the two of them: two boxes for Miranza and one for Vector. His box had contained new armour, black livery in a style similar to that which the servant wore, light enough that Vector would be able to move easily while still heavy and durable enough to provide him with decent protection. The material – some kind of flexisteel and leatheris combination – had been polished to a high shine, and there were dark red Imperial cogs on the pauldrons and over the chest-plate. Miranza had received similar armour, albeit made from much lighter material, and hers was matte-black. The second box contained a matched set of daggers, the blades wicked-sharp and as black as their armour.

“You’re a sniper,” Vector had murmured, seeing Miranza lift and examine one of the daggers. It was beautiful: sleek and dark and lethal-looking, and the hilt seemed to fit perfectly in Miranza’s hand as though it had been made for her. Vector suspected that it _had_.

“Darth Occlus has other plans for me,” had been the cryptic reply, and that had been the end of the discussion.

Now, dressed in their brand-new armour, Vector found his eyes continually drawn to his wife’s grim profile. The armour fit perfectly, and that was a new cause for concern; he felt reasonably confident that their measurements were not readily available on the HoloNet, and yet he’d never owned a set of gear that had been better-tailored to his physique and fighting style. Miranza hated wearing black, convinced that the colour washed her out and made her look unwell, and while Vector would never say that his wife appeared less than perfect to him he did agree that black was not suited to her complexion. Darth Occlus’s armour made her look too pale and too forbidding, and he was hard-pressed to recognize his wife beneath the stern façade. He suspected that was the point.

 _“This is the_ Riven _to unknown vessel,”_ a voice intoned over the intercom, snapping Vector back to the present. _“Your approach is not listed on today’s flight schedule. State your business or be shot down.”_

Darth Occlus sat up a little straighter in her chair, keying in something on the command console. “This is the Dark Lord Inzharra Kallig, Darth Occlus, on board the interceptor-class spaceship _Ghostwalker._ I have business with your lord. I intend to dock. You will grant me and my crew safe passage aboard the _Riven_.” There was no “or else” tacked on to the end of Darth Occlus’s statement, but Vector heard it nonetheless. She was a Dark Lord of the Sith, accustomed to being obeyed - especially by other Imperials, in Imperial space.

There was a long pause, during which Vector stole a quick glance at Miranza. Her gaze was fixed on the viewscreen, her face as still and composed as stone. If she noticed Vector looking at her she paid him no heed, and when the docking bay doors began opening to admit the _Ghostwalker_ Vector turned away again, an unsettled knot beginning to twist in his gut.

 _“Yes, my lord,”_ came the reply, with just the faintest hint of a stammer. Vector wondered at how fearsome Darth Occlus’s reputation must be if an Imperial already in the employ of another Sith lord could demonstrate such obvious fear of her.

Darth Occlus docked the _Ghostwalker_ inside the massive star destroyer. Through the viewscreen Vector could see a handful of armed guards taking up formation outside their ship; beside him Miranza checked her weapons and Khem Val, the silent, giant creature who kept close to the Sith lord’s side, murmured something under his breath, speaking in a language Vector did not recognize.

“We can either cut our way through to Darth Jadzira and where your partner is likely being held,” Darth Occlus said, tugging her sleek black gauntlets into place, “or we can meet Jadzira on the bridge and claim him from there. In all likelihood we will need to fight our way out again, so the best course of action might simply be to kill everyone until we get to him.”

Vector held his breath, his eyes fixed on Miranza, waiting for her response. He already knew that part of Darth Occlus’s terms in assisting them had been their assurances that Darth Jadzira would not survive. Normally Vector would have been reluctant to agree to such bloodshed, but in the time between discovering who had won the auction and traveling to the _Riven_ to rescue Theron he had had the opportunity to read through the files Lana had sent them, and Darth Jadzira’s extensive resume spoke volumes. Vector was not the sort of man to think of sentient beings as animals in need of being put down, but Darth Jadzira was a rabid monster and Theron had already been in her clutches for far too long. _Twenty-one days._ If Darth Occlus murdering her was the only way he could get the image of the sad, mutilated corpses the rival Sith lord left in her wake out of his head, then so be it. The woman shouldn’t be allowed to continue committing such evil acts.

“Anyone who gets between us and … our partner … dies,” Miranza said at last. Her voice was cold, colder than the crystal caves on Ilum, and Vector felt a small shiver run down his spine.

Darth Occlus nodded, standing up. It never ceased to amaze Vector how unlike a great, imposing Sith lord she was: shorter than Miranza – who was herself a very short woman – Darth Occlus was pale and plump and neither regal nor imposing, and yet he could feel the power radiating off of her. She smiled, just a faint uplifting of the lips, and rested one gloved hand on the hilt of her lightsaber.

“Then let us rescue your partner,” she said, leading them off the ship.

The guard standing at the foot of the gangplank opened his mouth to speak and managed to get a single syllable out before Darth Occlus blasted him and the rest of his squad with lightning. Vector had scarcely seen her even raise her hands before a blinding flash struck the squad and the bodies hit the ground. He turned to share his surprise with Miranza but she was gone; it wasn’t until he heard a choking gurgle from up ahead that he saw her again: a puff of purple-black smoke, a flash of small, vicious blades, and another guard crumpled to the floor, his throat slashed open from ear to ear. Miranza disappeared again, nothing but smoke where she had stood. Vector had seen her make use of stealth generators before, but this was unlike anything he had witnessed, and whatever she was doing made her completely invisible to his aura-sight as well as to his regular unenhanced senses.

 _By the stars, what has she_ done? he asked himself, uncertain whether that question was best directed at Miranza or at Darth Occlus.

And so they progressed through Darth Jadzira’s dreadnought. Soldiers clad in Jadzira’s livery raced forward to meet them only to be struck down by Darth Occlus’s lightning, or for Miranza to disappear and then reappear, her blades at their throats. Vector, too, fought through their enemies, his electrostaff swinging out at anyone who came too close to him. Khem Val remained back at the ship to ensure their enemies did not take command of their escape vessel, and while Vector had originally been dismayed to discover the Dashade was not accompanying them, between Darth Occlus and Miranza he felt the creature would have been rather superfluous. Indeed, Vector himself felt rather unnecessary at times: the two women clearly had everything under control.

Vector had been on a fair number of Imperial star destroyers and dreadnoughts in his time working for Imperial Intelligence, and in his experience they were much of a muchness, from the layout to the décor to the staff responsible for crewing them. Darth Jadzira’s dreadnought, on the other hand, was decidedly unlike any vessel – Sith, military or otherwise – he had been aboard. Rather than the clean, crisp lines he was accustomed to, with uniformed soldiers patrolling the corridors and proper procedures and checkpoints, Darth Jadzira’s ship put him more in mind of a Hutt’s pleasure-craft – and an unorganized, shoddily-managed pleasure-craft at that. Despite their violent boarding no alarms had been sounded; every encounter with soldiers seemed to occur randomly, with their enemy caught entirely off-guard and no reinforcements forthcoming. The corridors were dark and crowded, with heaps of pillows scattered here and there, scantily-clad bodies sprawled across them. Music played over the loudspeakers, something he didn’t recognize, dark and heady and with a steady beat. The air was cloying, fragrant with the scent of too many unwashed bodies crowded in too-close a space, and underneath it all was the pervasive odour of spice: not so strong as to be intoxicating all on its own, but certainly indicative that the drugs were rampant throughout the ship. It was so far off from anything Vector might have expected from a Sith lord’s personal spaceship that he almost felt personally offended, as if Darth Jadzira had deliberately gone out of her way to create an atmosphere he would find unappealing and disconcerting.

It was a small consolation that Darth Occlus and Miranza both seemed to share Vector’s discomfort, the part of the Miralukan’s face not hidden behind her mask twisted in a snarl of disgust, Miranza’s dark blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. It was, Vector decided, uncomfortable because it seemed so very unprofessional: this was not the proper use of a military vessel, and the Imperial soldiers attached to Darth Jadzira’s service were a waste of Imperial personnel. Given the current conflicts with Zakuul and the Republic it seemed ludicrous that someone of Darth Jadzira’s reputation and power should be squandering resources in such a manner.

“Pathetic,” Darth Occlus spat after dispatching another squad of soldiers. These ones had literally just run into them; the Sith lord had turned a corner and walked directly into their patrol, and the four soldiers were so surprised to see her that she had managed to kill three-quarters of them before the fourth had even thought to raise his blaster pistol. “The entire crew should be put out the airlock. I’ve never seen such dereliction of duty before.”

It was as though the star destroyer had been entirely staffed by the spice-addicted dregs found sleeping on the floors of Hutt palaces. Uniforms were askew – or absent entirely – weapons were left unattended and uncared-for, and the soldiers roaming the corridors were not actively patrolling at all, but simply drifting from one location to another in search of sport.

“This is strange, right?” Miranza asked, bending and wiping her blade off on a dead soldier’s unbuttoned jacket.

“Quite,” Darth Occlus assured her. She sniffed at the air around them, snub nose wrinkling in distaste. “I suspect there might be some form of airborne intoxicant circulating through the ventilation system. We would do well not to linger, lest we become affected. Our enhanced physiologies should provide some measure of protection, but I do not wish to test it.”

Narrowing his eyes, Vector glanced at his wife, then up at the ventilation shafts overhead. His physiology was enhanced as a result of his Killik Joining, granting him greater strength and stamina, and it would be safe to assume that Darth Occlus’s nature as Sith would protect her. Miranza, on the other hand, was merely a human woman in peak physical condition; she had no particular protections from airborne intoxicants – not unless Darth Occlus was referring to something else. Such as Miranza’s newfound ability to disappear into a cloud of smoke and reappear several feet away.

Once again Vector found himself wondering – and worrying about – what his wife had done. Or perhaps more accurately: what his wife had had _done to her._

They turned another corner, heading into a large open area that would have served as a cafeteria on other ships. On Darth Jadzira’s ship it was something else entirely. The tables and bench seating had all been pushed up against the walls and the wide open space strewn with pillows, blankets and overturned crates. Bodies in various stages of disrobing stretched about the floor, twisted in piles of twos and threes and fours and more. Vector was by no means a prude – even prior to his open relationship with Miranza, his time with the Oroboro Nest and before that as a member of the Imperial Diplomatic Services had resulted in his horizons being forcibly broadened somewhat more than the average Imperial’s – but the sight of what appeared to be a massive, drug-soaked orgy made his cheeks immediately flush with colour. The odour of spice was thick here and the music playing overhead had grown louder and more pervasive, until it felt as though the drumbeat was originating from somewhere within Vector’s chest or skull.

Darth Occlus raised her hands, vivid white sparks beginning to dance off her fingertips, but Miranza moved in front of her and made a warding gesture.

“Dark Lord, no,” Miranza hissed, turning – deliberately putting her back to the Miralukan – and pointing at the people in front of them. For a moment both Vector and Darth Occlus stood in stunned confusion, the Sith’s hands still raised in preparation for another lightning storm, and then Vector saw it.

Half – more than half – of the people in the room were in chains, and even from where Vector stood in the doorway he could tell that these were not ornamental or costume bonds, but actual heavy chains wrought from durasteel. Some of them were held in place by hooks mounted in the floor or the ceiling, while others were “free” to move about, hands and wrists bound, or leashes held in the hands of men and women in the livery of Darth Jadzira. While this might indeed be an orgy – and a drug-fuelled one at that – the vast majority of the participants did not appear to be there willingly. The broken, battered corpses from Darth Jadzira’s file floated behind Vector’s eyes, and he wondered how many of them had died after being forced to take part in scenes such as the one before him now.

Vector sucked in a breath, uncertain whether he wanted to find Theron amidst this writhing sea of bodies. He wanted to find Theron, yes, but … not here. Not like this.

Darth Occlus’s hands clenched into fists and she let out a harsh scream of rage that was echoed around the room. Lightning flashed, and Vector was forced to throw his hands up in front of his face lest he be stricken blind; unable to see, all he could do was listen to the sounds of screaming. When his vision finally cleared a significant number of the orgy participants – the ones who were not in chains – were lying dead on the ground, their bodies still smoking. The chained men and women were huddled close to the ground, trying to cover their heads to protect themselves. Across the room Miranza moved from person to person, blades flashing as she finished off those survivors who had been willing participants.

 _This is insane,_ Vector thought, eyes fixed on a bright red splash of blood across Miranza’s cheek. He forced himself to look away from his wife, scanning the crowd for some sign of Theron. When he concluded that none of the people involved in the orgy – willingly or otherwise – had been Theron, he moved towards the first person he could see, a green-skinned Twi’lek woman who was standing hunched over the body of a half-naked officer, kicking him in the chest with one bare foot. She backed away from the dead man when she saw Vector coming towards her, but the Joiner shook his head, grabbed hold of the chains that bound her wrists together, and gave a vicious, solid yank, snapping the links between his hands.

“We are looking for a man,” he said, releasing her. “Human, dark hair, with implants in his forehead. Have you seen him?”

The Twi’lek nodded emphatically, her eyes going wide. “He said you’d be coming! He said you’d be here to save us!”

At her words the other slaves – for surely that was what they were – began crowding around Vector. Those whose bindings prevented them from moving turned to watch, and an air of excitement filled the room. Miranza sidled in through the crowd, moving with the grace of a stalking predator until she was at Vector’s side; Darth Occlus was rather less graceful but no less predatory, coming to stand a few feet away from Vector.

“This isn’t what we agreed, Ghost,” Darth Occlus said, speaking directly to Miranza. There was a heavy note of warning in her voice.

Miranza looked out over the crowd, an expression of dismay on her face. Vector watched her and saw the moment her dismay turned to stony indifference, and his heart sank. She looked from Darth Occlus to Vector and back again, and gave her head a small shake.

“We didn’t come here for these people, Vector,” she said quietly. “We can’t save everyone.”

The Twi’lek woman, the one who’d been so excited to see them, let out a mournful sound, and Vector let his anger and sorrow show on his face.

“You cannot _seriously_ be suggesting that we leave these people here!” he hissed, gesturing out at the crowd around them.

“He said you’d be coming for him!” the Twi’lek insisted. “He said you’d come, and that you would take us all with you. He _said._ He promised!”

“It’s been the only thing keeping us going,” one of the other slaves spoke up. This one was a large, burly Zabrak clad only in a loincloth. There were bite-marks all over his naked torso; under different circumstances Vector might have called them love-bites, but here ... He doubted there had been much of love involved. “It’s the reason she took him away – because he gave us hope.”

Miranza winced, closing her eyes. Behind her Darth Occlus was shaking her head, teeth bared in a feral smile.

“I am not in the habit of providing charity,” the Sith lord snapped, folding her arms across her chest. Although it wasn’t possible to see her eyes – and even if the mask hadn’t been in place, her vestigial eye sockets would have given nothing away – Vector had the sense that she was looking at Miranza, staring pointedly at her. “This is not what we agreed to.”

Then, a slow smile spreading across her lips, Darth Occlus turned and scanned the room, stopping only when she was facing Vector directly.

“On the other hand,” she said thoughtfully, “Perhaps, if I kept some of these people for myself, for my … research … I might be persuaded to alter the terms of our arrangement.”

“No.” Miranza faced the Sith lord, mouth set in a firm line. She glanced at Vector, then at the slaves around them, and for the briefest of moments Vector saw defeat ripple across her aura and he thought for certain she had made up her mind and that the slaves would be left behind. Then she straightened, sighing. “The only one up for trade here is me, Dark Lord. For each additional person we rescue, I’ll give you one more day.”

Vector’s eyes narrowed as he searched his wife’s face, trying to understand what she was saying. Darth Occlus scowled, then countered with “A month.”

“One day,” Miranza replied.

“One _week_.”

“One _day_ ,” Miranza snapped firmly, flipping one of her knives up into her hand, the hilt landing in her palm with an audible smack. As Vector looked on in horror Miranza raised the blade up to her own throat, the sharp edge pressing in hard enough against her skin that he could see a faint trickle of blood along her neck. “One day for each additional person, or you get nothing.”

Darth Occlus let out a frustrated hiss. “You wouldn’t _dare._ I own you. Break our agreement and I will murder every person in this room.”

“You don’t own me yet.” The blade dug in a bit harder. Miranza’s hands were gloved, but Vector suspected that had he been able to see her hands they would have been white-knuckled. “You wanted Darth Jadzira dead and you wanted me. You’re about to get both. Do you _really_ want to find out whether or not I’m bluffing?”

Vector held his breath, certain he was about to watch Miranza slash her own throat or Darth Occlus strike them all down where they stood. A part of him wanted to take back his request that they save the slaves; he hadn’t known what was at stake here. He still didn’t know or understand what was going on. But if Miranza could arrange for all these men and women to be freed, then surely she had to try. As much as he wanted Theron back and safe, he didn’t think he could live with himself if they had stopped at only rescuing Theron. Especially when it seemed their lover had shared his hope of a rescue with everyone else in Darth Jadzira’s clutches.

“Fine.” Darth Occlus tossed the word out as if it tasted bad on her tongue. “I accept your new terms, Ghost, although I’ve no clue how we’re going to fit all these people on board the _Ghostwalker.”_

“We’ll figure that out later, once Jadzira is dead and we have everyone safe.” Miranza drew in a shuddering breath and let it out slowly before turning towards the Twi’lek woman. “Now, I believe you were about to tell me where she’s taken him?”

O o O o O

Ever since the moment Theron had been taken captive on Asylum Vector had been aware of a chronometer ticking in the back of his mind. Initially that clock had been set against the schedule Lana had established for her plan to rescue Caedan Savarr, a sort of mental deadline that Vector knew they needed to reach because there was no force in the galaxy that could compel him or Miranza to abandon Theron while they went after the Outlander. Vector knew it was selfish to focus on his lover rather than the man Lana believed would help them restore the galaxy from Emperor Arcann’s clutches, but after everything the three of them had been through – much of it solely for the greater good – he refused to feel guilty about this selfishness.

While Theron had been in Strix’s custody Vector had been more willing to be patient, to be mindful of the mission. He trusted Shae Vizla’s judgment, trusted that she understood what made a bounty hunter like Strix tick, trusted that Theron would be safe enough with Strix that they could focus on rescuing Master Savarr.

Amrielle’s arrival and subsequent capture of Theron obliterated Vector’s patience. He hadn’t known what the Nautolan woman intended to do with Theron, but she’d already put his lovers through far too much and he had no intentions of leaving Theron to suffer in her hands.

And then Amrielle had auctioned Theron off like a prize bantha, and that chronometer in Vector’s head began sounding an alarm.

 _“Darth Jadzira is mad,”_ Lana had told them, once they’d learned the results of Amrielle’s auction. Even removed as she was from Sith Intelligence and the politicking on Dromund Kaas Lana’s connections still proved incredibly useful; neither Vector nor Miranza would have had the resources to track down the Sith lord who had offered up the highest bid. _“There has been talk for years about sending the Wrath or a hit squad to deal with her, but so long as she restricted her attentions to non-Imperials – or at least to unimportant Imperials – it was always deemed more trouble than it was worth.”_

Vector had seen the madness of Sith lords before. Darth Jadzira’s madness was something else entirely, and he had to wonder how much of an impact the Dread Masters had had on her.

Theron had been in Darth Jadzira’s custody for twenty-one days. Twenty-one days during which he had been trapped aboard the _Riven_ along with the Sith lord’s other “toys.” (Vector had seen the holo-images of what Darth Jadzira’s toys looked like when she was done playing with them. Her file had been filled with pictures of twisted, broken bodies and mindless, babbling shells driven mad by her cruelty and Force powers.) Five hundred and four hours being tormented by a woman who saw him as a substitute for his father, the man responsible for her own father’s death. Thirty thousand, two hundred and forty minutes – and counting – of being the focal point of a sadist and highly skilled torturer’s madness. Almost two million seconds enduring Darth Jadzira’s attentions. Amrielle had deliberately accepted Darth Jadzira’s bid because she had known that this particular woman would ensure he suffered, and suffered _horribly_.

 _“He told us you would be coming for him. For_ us.” The green-skinned Twi’lek’s voice echoed in Vector’s mind, the relief and hope pouring off of her. _“He wouldn’t let us give up.”_

He’d given Darth Jadzira’s other captives hope, and she’d locked him away for that. Vector had no doubt Theron had to be terrified; the former SIS agent would understand exactly why Amrielle had handed him over to the Sith lord, and Amrielle would know, better than almost anyone in the galaxy, all the things Theron feared the most. She had been there when Theron had suffered under Samar’s attentions. She knew. She _knew,_ and she had chosen Darth Jadzira with that knowledge in mind. And even so, Theron had sought to help lift the other captives’ spirits. Sent to his own personal hell, Theron had gone down swinging.

The massive cargo hold on board the _Riven_ had been converted into a vault or treasure room. As it turned out, Darth Jadzira was a collector and she liked to be able to travel with all of her possessions. Under vastly different circumstances Vector might have wanted to peruse her collection; no doubt there were some priceless artifacts stored in the cargo hold. Some items were set out on display – ancient suits of armour, large stone tablets, an assortment of lightsabers from the Jedi she had killed – but the vast majority were stored in durasteel crates piled high in the cargo hold. Periodically she would change out her collection, putting older items aside in favour of showing off her newest acquisitions. While she had her own captain’s suite on board the star destroyer Darth Jadzira had also set up space in the middle of her collection so that she could be surrounded by her treasures while she slept. As some of those “treasures” were sentient beings she also had _other_ uses for them, and according to the green-skinned Twi’lek Theron had become one such toy.

There were two sets of guards posted outside the doors to the cargo hold, and while these guards were better prepared and on alert they still crumpled like tissue paper when Darth Occlus, Miranza and Vector reached them. The turrets, likewise, posed no threat; a single strike of lightning split into two, blasting the turrets and even the flooring they were mounted to into scorched hunks of unrecognizable metal. Beyond the doorway the cargo hold was dark, lit from within by low red lamps that painted everything in lurid hues.

The soldiers in the cargo hold were preoccupied, and not with their guard duties, although some of them tried to scramble for armour and weapons as Darth Occlus and Vector approached them. They were in varying stages of undress, clustered around the large bed that was the focal point of the hold, and in the flickering red light their movements appeared to occur in choppy blocks of action. It was difficult for Vector to gauge precisely what was happening – the brain has a way of shorting out in order to protect itself from processing truly awful things – but as he moved closer, aware that Miranza had vanished into smoke again, one of the soldiers stood up, dragging a human shield up in front of him, holding Theron up by the hair so that the former SIS agent’s body was between the soldier and Theron’s advancing rescuers.

The red light made it hard to tell for certain, but Theron appeared largely uninjured – physically, at least. Mentally, however, while Vector was no expert he could see that Theron was not entirely present. He was unresisting in the soldier’s grasp, making no effort to free himself or even to defend his own naked body. His head lolled back on his neck; the high-tech slave collar Vector had seen in Amrielle’s auction holovid had been replaced by one made of leatheris, tied on tight enough that even from that distance Vector could see the way it dug into his flesh. His face was blank, his eyes vague and empty. He seemed completely unaware of what was happening to him, completely disinterested in his own fate. He might have been a doll or a puppet for all the life that showed on his face.

Miranza popped out of the shadows behind the soldier, grabbing him by the hair just as he had done to Theron – only instead of using the man’s hair to hold him up, she used it to force his head still while she brought her blade across his throat in one swift motion. The soldier didn’t even have time to make a sound; he released Theron, his hands reaching up towards his ruined throat in a futile attempt to stop the blood: the actions of a dead man who hadn’t discovered yet that he was dead.

Somebody screamed – Vector couldn’t tell who – and there was a sudden flurry of activity as the remaining soldiers tripped over one another in their efforts to fight or flee. The one Miranza had killed hit the ground as two more stepped in to take his place and she had to let Theron fall in order to be able to defend herself.

The soldiers were half-naked, largely unarmed and in a state of confusion, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The moment Vector saw Theron – naked, eyes glazed over, scarcely aware of his surroundings – everything seemed to snap into focus. Vector saw red and it had nothing to do with the gaudy lamps that illuminated the hold. Electrostaff spinning he charged forward, heedless of his own safety, cold hard rage filling his mind and propelling him to act.

The Song of the Avenger poured forth from Vector’s lips as he strode towards the maelstrom of violence.

When his vision finally cleared Darth Jadzira’s soldiers were dead, the pile of broken and bloodied bodies surrounding the bed high enough to be used as cover.

Vector ripped the leatheris slave collar away from Theron’s neck with his bare hands, tossing the hated thing as far away from him as he possibly could. Theron, drawn up off the floor and set onto the edge of the bed, was limp and unresisting against Vector, shivering violently but otherwise unmoving.

Darth Occlus made an awkward, uncomfortable sound, and when Vector drew his gaze away from his unresponsive lover he found that she was holding her cloak out to him. He hadn’t seen her remove it. He accepted it gratefully and draped the thick black fabric around Theron’s shoulders. The cloak was far too short for Theron – barely falling to his knees – but it provided him with some cover. Vector had to coax him to hold the cloak closed, wrapping the other man’s numb fingers around the clasp to keep it in place. When his hand fell away so too did the cloak, sliding down one shoulder before Vector tugged it back up. Theron couldn’t seem to sort out how to keep his hand up in order to hold the cloak closed; he didn’t seem to remember how his limbs worked.

“Here,” Darth Occlus said quietly, bending towards Theron to fasten the clasp. When she drew back the cloak remained in place, falling loosely around Theron’s shoulders. She straightened, her face once more unreadable behind her mask.

“We still need to find Darth Jadzira,” Miranza said. She hovered uncertainly around Theron, gloved hands twitching up from where they rested lightly on the hilts of her knives. Vector found it difficult to read her aura, but her body language was another matter entirely: she wanted to touch Theron, to reassure herself that he was real and more or less in one piece, but her hands were bloody and she was still itching to do violence. There was a restlessness about her that wasn’t resolved simply by having Theron at her side again. Miranza wanted - _needed,_ even - to do more damage, but she was afraid to touch Theron lest that violence spill over from her into him. He was damaged enough without her bloodied hands on him.

“I will find Jadzira,” said Darth Occlus, turning from Miranza to Vector and then back again. “Take him back to the ship. I will meet you there once Darth Jadzira has been dealt with.”

“I want to kill that bitch,” Miranza protested, her voice coming out in a hiss.

Darth Occlus was hard to read, but to Vector she looked amused – pleased, even, as though Miranza was a pet who had just performed a particularly difficult trick. She made a negligent gesture in Theron’s direction.

“Go,” she urged.

Bothered by the obvious conflict written on Miranza’s face, Vector turned away and focused his attention on Theron. He tried to help the other man to stand, but the moment he was upright Theron’s knees gave way and he started to sink back to the ground. Vector slung his electrostaff on his back and scooped Theron up into his arms, cradling him against his chest as though he were a small child rather than a grown man whose broad shoulders and stocky, muscular build made them both roughly the same weight. Vector staggered a little, trying to find his footing, but it pained him to notice that Theron seemed lighter than he was used to. He’d lost weight in the twenty-one days he’d been Darth Jadzira’s prisoner.

“We will need your protection, beloved,” Vector said quietly to Miranza, drawing her attention to the fact that his arms were now full. He didn’t know how many of Jadzira’s staff were left alive, but if there were any between them and their escape route they would need to be dealt with. He was in no frame of mind to try to manage such things peacefully, either.

For one long, dreadful moment Vector was afraid his wife would choose more violence - the need for revenge and destruction - over guarding him and Theron. She was clearly torn, her body literally trembling with the effort of holding herself in place rather than taking off down the corridors in search of Theron’s tormentor. Then, slowly, Vector saw her force herself into calmness, the violent energies of her aura giving way to rigid self-control. Miranza didn’t reply, but no response was necessary as she took up a protective stance in front of them, her hands curled around the hilts of her daggers. Vector held Theron against his chest and did his very best not to notice the way his partner was shivering against him; he tucked Theron’s head in under his chin and let Miranza lead the way back to the _Ghostwalker._

The walk back to the docking bay and Darth Occlus’s ship was largely silent, interrupted only a handful of times by some very misguided but loyal soldiers of Darth Jadzira. On each occasion Miranza seemed to fade from view, the corridor darkening enough that the shadows could swallow her whole, and when she reappeared – usually within slashing distance of one or more of their enemies – it was like the darkness opened up and spat her out. Behind her with Theron in his arms Vector had plenty of opportunity to observe his wife in action, and while he was certainly familiar with watching her utilizing a stealth generator to hide herself from view that was clearly _not_ what was happening here. Rather than relying on technology, Miranza seemed to be using something else entirely, some kind of power Vector had never witnessed before. The shadows wrapped around her, springing up as if from out of nowhere – indeed, while the _Riven_ was not as well-lit as the star destroyers Vector was familiar with, it was still not a particularly dark ship – until she was completely enveloped, and then she and the shadows disappeared.

Whenever Miranza reappeared, someone died.

Darth Jadzira’s soldiers were dead before they knew what was happening to them. Vector didn’t have to set Theron down once to aid his wife.

Khem Val, the massive, beady-eyed creature that accompanied Darth Occlus everywhere, was waiting outside the _Ghostwalker,_ heavily muscled arms folded across his broad chest. The freed slaves milled around in the ship in confusion and excitement, keeping a respectful distance between themselves and the Dashade. Vector noticed a few uniformed bodies on the ground surrounding the ship but was unable to tell how they had been dispatched; the slaves were largely unarmed – many of them were naked or mostly so – but they’d had numbers on their side. He suspected Khem Val had likely sent more than a few of their enemies on to meet their maker, as well. He supposed it didn’t matter how their enemies had died, so long as they weren’t able to pose a threat to Theron or their eventual escape from this monstrous place.

The Dashade refused to let them board the ship, muttering at them in his strange language. He wasn’t aggressive about it, but he stood in front of the gangway, unmoving and impassive, like a very large, very unfriendly statue. The newly-freed slaves had the good sense not to press the issue, instead waiting for their would-be rescuers to join them.

Unable to continue carrying Theron for much longer, Vector lowered his lover onto the ground just beside the ramp up into the _Ghostwalker_ , pooling as much of Darth Occlus’s cloak under him as possible. Theron was conscious but unresponsive, hazel eyes drifting idly and unfocused around him. Vector wondered briefly what Theron was seeing, then decided he probably didn’t want to know.

“How is he?” Miranza asked. She stood over Theron and Vector, once again filled with that restless energy that made her unable to be still. She wasn’t looking at Theron or Vector, but rather was scanning the docking bay for further threats. Judging by how keyed-up she was Vector knew she would have welcomed more danger, a better outlet for the pent-up aggression coiling inside of her.

“We do not know,” Vector replied quietly. He glanced up at the men and women milling around him. “What was done to him?”

One of the freed slaves – a tall, slender Cathar with dark spotted markings and a notch taken out of one ear – wrapped his arms around his midsection and let out a small snort. “What _wasn’t_ done to him?”

Vector swallowed heavily and lowered his head, deciding against dwelling too closely on all the horrible images the Cathar’s words brought to mind. Under Darth Occlus’s ill-fitting cloak he could see cuts and bruises marring Theron’s tan skin, but certainly none that appeared life-threatening, and no broken bones or deep lacerations that he was aware of. There was darker bruising around Theron’s wrists, ankles and throat, and it was far too easy for Vector to imagine the restraints he’d been bound in or the hands pinning him down. He swallowed again. Theron hated being restrained.

“We need to get him to the medbay on board,” Miranza said, directing her statement to the Dashade. Khem Val continued to stare at her impassively, still not moving away from his position guarding the ship.

Miranza opened her mouth, no doubt intending to push the matter further, when suddenly she let out a choked hand and went flying through the air to crash into a stack of crates piled some forty feet away from the _Ghostwalker._ As she staggered back up to her feet, already reaching for the hilts of her daggers, Vector turned towards the source of the attack, fully expecting to see Darth Jadzira or one of her apprentices bearing down on them.

Instead, he saw Darth Occlus, red lightsaber in one hand, the other hand raised in a fist before her. She lifted her fist a bit higher and Miranza was sent tumbling in the opposite direction, slamming into the side of a nearby speeder. The speeder toppled over and Miranza went sprawling.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” Darth Occlus hissed, advancing on her, her lightsaber casting her in an inhuman glow. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

“My lord,” Vector began, tone conciliatory even as he moved to put himself between Theron, the freed slaves and the Dark Lord of the Sith stalking towards them. Darth Occlus paid him no heed, all her attention focused on his wife.

Miranza stood only to be sent flying backwards again, back into the overturned crates she had first been thrown into. When she climbed back to her feet she was unsteady, one hand propped up against a crate to keep herself upright.

“’My _partner,’”_ Darth Occlus said, voice taking on a mocking, sing-song tone. “’Darth Jadzira stole my _partner,_ Dark Lord.’ As if I wouldn’t realize your partner was _Theron Shan!”_ That clenched fist was raised yet again, and Miranza suddenly lifted up into the air, both hands clawing at the skin of her throat as though to grapple at the unseen hands that were choking her. Her feet scuffed against the ground until Darth Occlus lifted her up high enough that even the toes of her boots couldn’t touch down. “I waited for you to make that admission, little Ghost. Did you not know that I had been invited to take part in that auction as well? Your Nautolan friend wanted to see what I would do to him with my Sith alchemy.”

Instinct pushed Vector to go to his wife, to try and get her down or to distract Darth Occlus from what she was doing so that Miranza could save herself. He didn’t move, though it pained him to leave Miranza to defend herself. Instead, he stood over Theron’s insensate body, ready to throw himself in front of the Dark Lord’s powers if it meant keeping Theron and the freed slaves safe. Miranza’s eyes darted briefly towards him and in that moment he sensed her approval, her willing him to stay where he was, to stay _out_ of this and let her deal with it. _Save Theron,_ her wide, panic-filled eyes seemed to say to him. _Keep him safe._

“She misjudged me,” Darth Occlus continued, as Miranza scrabbled desperately for purchase against the invisible force cutting off her air. “Her little auction disgusted me.” She tilted her head, and even with half her face hidden behind the mask Vector got the impression that she was looking down at Theron. “I could just claim him now, along with you. To the victor go the spoils, after all. I should take him, take your husband, take all these slaves as punishment for your deception.”

She sighed and lowered her hand. Miranza hit the ground hard, falling forward and gasping for breath.

“We had an agreement,” the Miralukan woman said, speaking quietly. Now she was most definitely facing Miranza. “I intend to honour it, even if one of us was negotiating in bad faith.” She turned to Vector, gesturing behind him, at the various ships and pleasure-crafts that filled the hangar. “I think it would be wise if we went our separate ways, Master Hyllus. You will take your lover Theron Shan and the freed slaves and board one of Darth Jadzira’s larger vessels. Your wife will be free to accompany you when she has completed her tenure in my service.”

“What?” Vector looked from Darth Occlus to Miranza, unable to hide the confusion from his voice. “We don’t understand. Miranza … Theron needs you. You can’t … You cannot go with Darth Occlus, not now, not when –”

“I had intended to grant my little Ghost a month to settle her affairs,” Darth Occlus said. She shook her head, mouth twisting in a petulant line. “Consider this part of your punishment for trying to deceive me, Ghost.”

Miranza nodded, one hand rubbing at her throat. When she pushed herself up into a sitting position and then stood she wouldn’t look in Vector’s direction. Her face was very, very pale, her eyes as round as dinner plates.

“We had an agreement,” Darth Occlus said again. “One year of service in exchange for assistance in rescuing her partner.” She pursed her lips and looked out over the slaves. “One year, plus one additional day for each slave freed, which looks like …” She counted out loud. “Thirty-three extra days of service.”

Miranza nodded again, saying in a raspy voice, “Yes, Dark Lord.”

There was a sick feeling twisting around in Vector’s gut as he remembered Miranza’s response to the men and women they’d found in the cafeteria, and his determination that these slaves must be freed along with Theron. He hadn’t realized what he was asking for, what he was demanding. He hadn’t been aware of the cost.

Thirty-three days of service in exchange for thirty-three lives: that seemed like a bargain to him, a deal he would have made had it been his own servitude he was offering up. Plus a full year in exchange for Theron’s life, which was an arrangement Vector would have agreed to in a heartbeat. A year, a decade, an eternity: whatever it took to save Theron. But it hadn’t been his life Vector was bargaining with, and he had no way of knowing what Darth Occlus intended to do with Miranza.

“I have little stomach for the buying and selling of slaves,” Darth Occlus said, and to her credit Vector thought she sounded sincere. He seemed to recall that she had once been a slave herself, so perhaps that coloured her opinions on the matter – but then again, one needn’t have been personally affected to understand that slavery was wrong. “You sold yourself to me, little Ghost, and now” – she pointed in Theron’s direction – “you’ve been bought and paid for. Say your goodbyes. The stench of this place is giving me a headache.”

Then, rather pointedly, Darth Occlus turned her back on them and moved towards the gangway of the Ghostwalker, giving them the privacy to say goodbye. Khem Val didn’t move from his position, arms still folded across his wide chest, his eyes sweeping over the slaves.

Miranza limped towards Vector and Theron, cradling one arm against her side. A cut had been opened up over the bridge of her nose, bleeding all down her face, and a bruise was forming along her hairline. It seemed the only injuries she had sustained since coming aboard the _Riven_ had come from Darth Occlus’s hands. Despite all the fighting, none of the blood that had been shed prior to her confrontation with Darth Occlus had been Miranza’s own. Vector scrubbed one hand over his jaw, still struggling to make sense of all of this. His borrowed uniform was beginning to chafe, and he would dearly have loved to be back on board the _Mercurial_ , freshly showered and sprawled in bed with Theron and Miranza. Safe and clean and with this nightmare long behind them.

“We don’t understand,” he said softly, as Miranza moved to stand in front of him. His eyes searched her face, his gaze lingering on her dark blue eyes. Something in their depths seemed different, a flicker of colour he didn’t recognize – a glint of silver mixed in with the blue. Had he simply never noticed it before? That seemed unlikely; he knew her eyes like he knew every inch of her, better than he knew himself. “What have you done, beloved?”

“We needed help saving Theron.” Miranza looked away, uncomfortable under his close scrutiny. “I got us help. She won’t … Darth Occlus isn’t …” She sighed. “She approached me back when we first left Imperial Intelligence. She wanted someone who had the freedom to operate unseen and unknown, and had read my file, from back when I … from back at the facility where I was … raised.”

“You said no then,” Vector said. He tucked a finger under her chin, using it to lift her head. She nodded. “And you said yes now, for Theron’s sake.”

“We needed her help, and …” She shrugged lightly. “She wants me for my skillset, love.”

“Yes, of course.” Vector chose not to point out that her skillset was rather extensive, and that she had walked away from Imperial Intelligence for a reason, not the least of which was because Miranza was tired of being used ‘for her skillset.’ She had made a choice, then and now, and while he struggled to understand it ( _surely we could have done this without Darth Occlus’s aid?_ ) he was not in the habit of undermining her decisions. His thumb brushed over her lower lip, stroking her soft skin. “We will explain the situation to Theron when he …” _Wakes up? Recovers? Is himself again?_ “… When the time is right.”

“Thank you.” Miranza closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. When she opened her eyes again Vector could see tears beginning to form in their corners. “Vector, I’m sorry.”

“Hush, beloved, you did what you thought best.”

Vector drew Miranza into his arms and kissed her, tasting the blood on her lips. He tried not to notice that she was trembling or that the fear in her aura belied her assurances that she was comfortable with this arrangement with Darth Occlus. He was afraid for her, and for what it would mean to Theron to wake up and find her gone. He didn’t want to have to explain any of this to Theron, didn’t want to see the devastation in the other man’s eyes when Theron woke up and Miranza wasn’t there.

“I’ll be all right,” Miranza whispered against his lips, the words scarcely audible.

“I love you,” he replied just as quietly, forcing the singular pronoun out with great deliberation. “Please take care of yourself and come back to us.”

O o O o O

Many hours later Vector was on the bridge of the _Mercurial,_ staring blankly at the navicomputer as he tried to determine where to go. He had given control of their stolen spacecraft to the men and women they’d rescued – as it turned out the Cathar was a pilot and occasional smuggler, and he had some thoughts on where to take his fellow former slaves – and brought Theron back to their own ship. His first thought had been to put Theron to bed in the captain’s quarters, but upon further consideration the medbay seemed the safest place for him.

Vector was not a doctor, but he knew the basics of emergency field medicine and the medbay on board the _Mercurial_ had decent equipment courtesy of Miranza. As he’d suspected Theron’s physical injuries were minor; the biggest concerns were severe dehydration and starvation, and Vector soon had him set up with an IV to help replenish the fluids and nutrients he had lost. Theron had lost weight in the time he’d been Darth Jadzira’s prisoner. The medscans also revealed that Theron had been subjected to a cocktail of intoxicants for an extended period of time – likely from the moment he was in the sadistic Sith lord’s custody, in addition to whatever Amrielle had been giving him to keep him docile during the auction – and as much as Vector wanted to give him something to help him sleep or to ease his pain he didn’t want to risk adding to the chemicals already in Theron’s system. Theron needed to rest and let his body heal naturally as much as was possible.

Theron had been impassive throughout the entire medical examination. He had been conscious, his hazel eyes drifting unseeing around the medbay, but he hadn’t been responsive enough to follow even the simplest of Vector’s instructions and instead Vector had been forced to move and adjust Theron himself in order to conduct the medical scans. Vector had tried getting him to speak but Theron’s continued silence ate at him, and when his own reassuring words faltered he fell into humming, an instinctively Killik habit, the steady, continuous rumble seeming to soothe Theron in ways his words could not.

Now Theron was resting – hopefully; Vector had already been back to the medbay several times in response to panicked cries, and while Theron didn’t appear to have any clue where he was Vector couldn’t even begin to guess where he _thought_ he was – and Vector was alone on the bridge.

He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know what to do. He and Miranza hadn’t planned this far ahead – everything had been focused on getting Theron _back,_ not on what they would do once he _was_ back. They had intended to make those plans together, with Theron. Vector felt a ripple of anger at the knowledge that Miranza had known she wouldn’t be coming back with them. She had left with Darth Occlus and dumped the weight of responsibility solely in Vector’s lap.

No, that wasn’t fair. Miranza had known she wouldn’t be coming with him and Theron, but Vector knew his wife well enough to know she hadn’t meant for him to shoulder the burden alone. He had to wonder if she had deliberately kept herself ignorant of their plans to ensure that Darth Occlus wouldn’t know where to find him and Theron. Several times during the rescue he had caught the Miralukan turned in his direction, a speculative expression on the lower half of her face. She had been interested in him. Her arrangement with Miranza may have left him and Theron clear, but Vector assumed that if the Sith lord could have found a way to include the two of them in the bargain she would have done so. No doubt a Killik Joiner and the son of one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy would have made for interesting subjects for her Sith alchemy.

Miranza had spared them this, as much as she could. Vector didn’t know what the Dark Lord intended to do with her, but he strongly suspected Sith alchemy would be involved somehow. He wasn’t an expect on the subject by any stretch of the imagination, but that strange Force transmutation would explain the things he had witnessed his wife doing. No doubt Darth Occlus had already begun experimenting on her.

 _Please let her come through this whole,_ he thought. He wasn’t in the habit of praying – Vector did not consider himself particularly religious – but if there was a higher power out there somewhere he hoped that it looked kindly upon his wife. He was already fearful that Theron was damaged beyond repair; he didn’t think he could handle losing both of them together.

Sighing, Vector scrubbed his hands over his face and activated the holocomm, keying in the sequence for Lana’s private communication channel. The Sith lord needed to know what was happening.

Lana answered on the first chime; no doubt she had been waiting for their call. Vector had no idea what time it was where she was, but her holo-image was dressed in casual spacer’s clothes and she seemed awake and alert.

Before Lana could even open her mouth in greeting Vector spoke: “We regret to inform you that we will not be able to assist you in rescuing Master Savarr.”

Lana’s jaw dropped, confusion and concern warring on her face. _“What …? What’s happened? Did you save Theron? You’ve still got over a week, that should be –”_

“It’s not,” Vector interrupted, speaking over her relentlessly. “We will not be joining you. Miranza is gone” – at Lana’s panicked expression he hastened to continue, “Darth Occlus took her as payment for her assistance. She will be returned when her term of service has ended.”

 _“And Theron …? Is he …?”_ Lana did not seem reassured by Vector’s statement, and he could tell by the hesitance in her voice that she was afraid he was about to inform her that Theron was dead or injured beyond repair, and that all of this had been for nothing.

“Theron is …” Vector considered his answer carefully, uncertain what the truth was. _Broken, but mending. Driven mad by Darth Jadzira’s powers. Lost, but we will find him. We do not know, Lana, we do not know what to tell you._

“Theron is recovering,” he said at last, praying that it was the truth. “At present he is in no condition to aid in the Outlander’s rescue, and we do not expect that a week will be sufficient time for him to return to full health.”

 _“I … see.”_ Lana bit her lower lip and nodded, and even through the staticky blue holo-image he could see the myriad expressions flickering across her face: relief, concern, irritation, guilt. _“What about you, Vector? How are you?”_

There were so many possible answers to that question, but the only one that mattered so far as Vector was concerned was the one he shared with her: “We will be staying with Theron. We … I am not going to leave his side. He needs us … _me._ He needs me.”

Then, before Lana could respond, Vector reached out and cut the comm. It was unspeakably rude of him and his inner diplomat scolded him for such a breach of etiquette – Lana Beniko deserved better than to be cut off in the middle of conversation, especially an important conversation such as this – but Vector found he did not have it in him to continue the discussion. She would have more questions, more concerns. She would try to convince him to come to her on Asylum, to bring Theron; she would try to find some way for him and Theron to be able to participate in Master Savarr’s rescue. He knew she needed them, he knew rescuing the Outlander was important, but he couldn’t be involved. Not now, not with Miranza gone and Theron … so lost.

Alone on the bridge of the _Mercurial,_ Vector Hyllus dropped his head into his hands and, for the first time since Theron had been taken, permitted himself to fall apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Possession" is by Sarah McLachlan. She wrote this song about her stalker, which made it particularly applicable in this situation given that Theron is here because of _his_ stalker, Amrielle. The line "Nothing stands between us here/And I won't be denied" also spoke to me of Miranza's mentality here, that _nothing_ was going to stop her from saving Theron. There are also (quite deliberately) a number of differing kinds of possession in this dark chapter.
> 
> This was a long and heavy chapter, and it was immensely difficult to write even though I've had the ideas for it floating around in my head for a while. I had been toying with how to explain/justify the fact that Theron, Vector and Miranza have been working to rescue the Outlander since the beginning of this fanfic and yet, canonically, they aren't a part of the actual rescue. This is why: because I've gone and destroyed everything.


	33. Haunted When the Minutes Drag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Outlander finally makes an appearance!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a time-jump here, which will hopefully make sense.
> 
> Trigger warnings for torture/rape recovery, unhealthy coping mechanisms, suicidal ideation/attempt, self-harm and just ... generally a lot of struggling with what's happened.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Jedi Master Caedan Savarr, the Hero of Tython, the Outlander: The man making his way along the cliffside up towards the Odessen Alliance base bore a lot of nicknames and titles, but the one he was feeling the most at present was “Arcann’s personal pincushion.” He’d pushed himself too far during his morning jog, tired of the forced convalescence that came as the result of an injury he shouldn’t have been able to survive, and the deeply scarred tissue along his flank, where Zakuulan Emperor Arcann had run him through with a lightsaber, pulled tight and sore. The smart thing to do would be to retreat to the private quarters the Alliance had deemed fit to give him as the Commander – oh, yes, another title; Lana Beniko did so _love_ handing them out – but Caedan had made a career of avoiding the ‘smart’ actions and didn’t think this was the time to start.

Early morning was the only time Caedan really had to himself anymore. He knew he shouldn’t complain; these people had chosen to give up their lives, their homes and their safety to join him on Odessen, and while he knew it wasn’t because of _him_ that they were there (regardless of what Lana seemed to think) he was grateful nonetheless. The Alliance would be nothing without them, and the least he could do was take the time to stop and visit with them. He’d made that effort wherever he was stationed, be it Tython, Nar Shaddaa or Corellia: learning their names, discovering what had driven them to sign up to fight beside him, finding out what they were fighting for. Master Orgus Din, his late mentor, had always taught Caedan that a good leader knew his people inside and out, and Caedan strived to make Master Orgus proud.

Strange to think Master Orgus had been dead for close to ten years now. Caedan had only been awake for half that time.

Grimacing – both at the familiar pull of grief he still felt over Master Orgus’s death and at the confusion that arose every time he considered the years he’d lost trapped in carbonite as an ornament in Arcann’s vault – Caedan paused, turning his face towards the valley that the Alliance base overlooked. The planet was beautiful and unspoiled, a welcome respite from the battles waging elsewhere in the galaxy, and the base itself complemented that beauty rather than detracted from it.

He rubbed self-consciously at the scarring at his side, unable to actually feel the damaged tissue through his dark brown robes yet perfectly aware of where on his body it was. It was difficult to forget, given that most people didn’t survive getting stabbed with a lightsaber.

_Well you should know,_ an amused, faintly patronizing voice in the back of Caedan’s head commented. _You’ve stabbed enough people, haven’t you?_

Caedan didn’t bother to respond, but Valkorion – the late and unlamented former Emperor of Zakuul, who had also somehow been Vitiate, the Imperial Emperor – still let out a knowing chuckle that rippled and curled inside his head. The dead man tended to be quiet, biding his time inside Caedan’s head for Force only knew what purpose, but every now and then he felt compelled to make a cutting remark or an incisive comment. As if Caedan _wanted_ his insights.

He turned away from the scenic valley below and towards the base itself, where even at this early hour people were hurrying about in their morning routine. It still felt strange to him to realize that all these people were here because of him, as if he had any more clue about what he was doing or how they should stop Arcann than they did. Really, if it hadn’t been for Lana and Koth he’d still be decorating Arcann’s walls, just a pretty Jedi statue slowly dying of carbonite poisoning. _They_ should be the ones in charge of this Alliance, not him. He offered up a half-hearted wave towards a pair of soldiers, one clad in the armour of a Republic SpecForce trooper, another wearing Imperial colours; they both paused in their animated discussion to wave back.

_How the times have changed,_ Caedan thought, suppressing the urge to shake his head. Half a decade ago those two men would have been trying to kill each other, and now they looked like the best of friends. He wasn’t sure what to make of this new galaxy yet.

_Make of it what you will,_ Valkorion insisted. _Sculpt it in your image._

_Stuff it,_ Caedan thought at him, ruthlessly slamming the mental door shut on further conversations with a dead man.

His Jedi training had been extensive, but Masters Shan and Din hadn’t prepared him for having an unwanted passenger inside his brain. As it turned out, while his mentors had done their best to mould him into the perfect Jedi, there had been a lot of things they’d been unable to prepare him for. The Emperor – in his many guises and incarnations – had only been one such surprise.

Caedan offered up a few more waves and greetings as he moved along the overlook. It seemed like everyone knew who he was and yet he was struggling to keep track of all the people who’d joined the Alliance. He hadn’t had time to meet everyone yet – in all likelihood he would never have time, there were just too many people (and wasn’t that a good thing, that the Alliance was growing so large?) – and of the few people he did know, or had known before going into the carbonite, he rarely had the opportunity to just meet up and hang out.

One of those people ducked under the wing of a nearby shuttle, ambling slowly but purposefully in Caedan’s direction. _Theron Shan._ Lana had mentioned that Theron was a part of the Alliance now – indeed, that he was one of its founding members – but Caedan had yet to run into the former SIS agent in spite of the fact that they were both living on the Odessen base in close proximity to each other. The last time Caedan had seen Theron had been on Ziost, and that had been years ago … and not exactly conducive to, well, anything.

From a distance Theron appeared unchanged, although Caedan had caught whispers of … something, some hardship or tragedy that had befallen him while Caedan had been out of circulation. His hair was still dark and spiky, sticking up in that casual, careless fashion that looked accidental but was most likely the result of styling and a considerable amount of product. He still wore that ridiculous red leatheris jacket, two blaster pistols slung at his hips in a way that drew Caedan’s gaze to – _Nope, not checking him out right now. Bad Jedi._ He still had the cranial implants glinting along his left eye and over his eyebrow, still had that faint smirk that Caedan wanted to – _Down, boy. You’d think it’s been five years since the last time you got laid._

Oh. Wait. It _had_ been five years.

More than.

Caedan sighed, letting a warm smile curve his lips as Theron approached. He had no way of knowing if Theron was even interested in him, never mind all this idle speculation about how good he’d look out of his … He gave himself a mental slap and forced his mind away from that one track it kept drifting back to. Thankfully, at least, Valkorion didn’t see fit to share his uninvited opinion on the subject. Caedan _really_ didn’t need to know what _he_ thought.

As Theron drew closer it was possible to note faint differences from the last time they’d seen each other. Nothing so dramatic as a new host of wrinkles or a distinguished spray of grey at the temples, but there were faint lines around the former SIS agent’s eyes and mouth that Caedan didn’t remember from before, and he held himself somewhat stiffly, filled with tension rather than the casual, careless grace that haunted Caedan’s memories. He looked like he’d lost some weight, too – it mostly showed in his cheeks and in the fine bones of his wrist when he waved a hand in greeting. And there were definitely bags under his eyes, but Caedan was familiar with sleepless nights and nightmares.

“Like what you’ve done with the place,” Theron said, stopping a few feet away from Caedan. He tilted his head to one side, the implants along his cheek catching the sun’s rays just so. “Theron Shan. Used to be with the Republic Strategic Information Service. Yavin Four? Ziost? Any of this ringing a bell?”

“It’s great to see you again, Theron,” Caedan replied. His voice came out sounding softer than he’d intended, more wistful-sounding, and he cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks flush. The lightsaber scar across his face tightened as it always did when he blushed.

“Good.” Theron grinned, an easy smile that didn’t quite seem to reach his eyes – which were the same rich hazel Caedan remembered, even if they seemed a bit more shadowed than before. “Wasn’t sure, based on what Lana said you went through. What you’re going through.”

Caedan wanted to reach out and touch Theron – to hug him, perhaps, or even just shake the man’s hand – but something about the way Theron held himself made him hold back. There was a tension in the other man that Caedan didn’t remember, but it coiled through him, giving the impression that Theron was seconds away from turning and bolting. Had things between them really ended that badly? Caedan scoured his memories, trying to think of anything from Ziost that might have left a bad taste in Theron’s mouth. They’d flirted a little, but that was all. Under different circumstances – circumstances that didn’t involve an entire planet’s destruction and the loss of hundreds upon thousands of innocent lives – things might have progressed a bit further and Caedan might have considered inviting Theron out for drinks or maybe even dinner. But Ziost had been a disaster, and not long after that Caedan had met up with Darth Marr in an effort to find and destroy the Sith Emperor. Marr had died and Caedan … well, Caedan had become a part of the Zakuulan décor.

Still, none of that had happened between Caedan and Theron, so Caedan didn’t know quite what to make of this forced distance between them now.

Theron took a few steps away, moving towards the edge of the overlook. He looked out over the valley, his expression distant, then turned back to Caedan.

“It’s been a long five years,” he said, jamming his hands in the pockets of his dark trousers. “Feels like everything’s changed.”

_Oh,_ Caedan thought. _This is it, this is where he tells me that whatever we had between us back then is gone now._ Five years – six, really, counting all the time they’d been working on building up the base – could sometimes seem like a lifetime in their lines of work. Perhaps Theron had moved on, gotten married, had kids. Maybe there was a wife or husband waiting for him back home – wherever home was – and there was no place for Caedan in his life now, outside of their professional association. It was stupid of Caedan to think things could pick up between them as though the galaxy hadn’t moved on without him.

Still, Caedan had to try. He aimed for a casually flirtatious tone: “You got better looking.”

Theron chuckled, running a hand over his dark brown hair, a faint flush coming over his cheeks. “I don’t know about that, but hey, I’ll take it.” He sobered, glancing away briefly, and switched topics. “Since I left the SIS Lana’s brought me in to manage operations.”

Caedan nodded. Lana had given him some insight into what the rest of her core team had been up to, and she’d mentioned some of Theron’s work. It had sounded like Theron had put a decent crew together, a surprisingly diverse crew: some Imperial spies, a couple of Mandalorians, even one of Caedan’s old creche-mates and fellow Jedi. He wondered if his twin Micah was a part of all of this, and knew that he had to be, Republic imprisonment or not. Caedan hoped he’d be able to pull some strings to get Micah out of lock-up.

“Before we get into all the more-or-less official stuff,” Theron went on, oblivious to Caedan’s thoughts, “I’ve got something for you.”

“You found my people?” Caedan knew that Tee-seven had been a part of Lana’s team – or was it Theron’s team? – but had heard nothing of any of the others, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hounding Lana about their whereabouts on an almost daily basis.

“No luck so far,” Theron said apologetically, turning away to tap at something on his wrist, “But …”

A woman’s voice sounded over a comm channel, familiar even through the tinny static. Caedan recognized Tora, Koth’s blue-haired mechanic friend.

_“Needs work!”_ Tora shouted over the comms, loud enough that Theron winced. _“A lot of work!”_

Theron pointed, but the sound of familiar engines would have drawn Caedan’s attention in that direction anyway, and he looked on with delight as his old spaceship drifted into view. The Defender-class light corvette, a gift from Caedan’s late Master, hovered over one of the cliffside landing pads before gentle settling down. Caedan wouldn’t have expected to be so touched at seeing his ship, but the sight of it brought tears to his eyes: it was one more step towards reclaiming his old life, to taking back the years that Emperor Arcann had taken from him.

“Theron …,” Caedan began, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. He stared at his ship, then at the man who’d brought it back to him. “That’s amazing! That’s … That’s …”

Unable to think of any more adjectives to explain how wonderful it was that Theron had recovered the _Vigilant_ for him, Caedan threw open his arms and drew the other man into a strong hug. He lifted Theron up off his feet, spinning him around a few times for good measure, his eyes brimming with tears and near-hysterical laughter threatening to spill from his lips.

In his elation Caedan failed to notice the way that Theron stiffened in his grasp. It wasn’t until he set the other man down again that he saw how pale he’d gone, his eyes taking on an almost glassy appearance.

“Theron …?”

“I … I, uh …” Theron backed away a few steps, hands raised as if to ward Caedan off. “I gotta go.”

And with that the former SIS agent turned and bolted towards the Alliance base, leaving Caedan staring stunned and confused at his retreating back.

_How very curious,_ Valkorion murmured in the back of Caedan’s mind. He sounded more amused than intrigued, however.

_Shut up,_ Caedan thought back at him, scratching at the beard he’d begun to grow since waking up from carbonite. _Just … shut up._

O o O o O

“Mister Hyllus! Oh, Mister Hyllus!”

Standing off to one side with one of the former Imperial quartermasters (who he privately thought of as Lana’s minions, since they answered primarily to her) Vector looked up from his datapad at the sound of his name. He glanced around, murmuring apologies to the quartermaster when his gaze landed on Khatera Suul, Jedi Master Oriana Zarasa’s friend from Belsavis. Khatera had been a school-teacher on Balmorra who had traveled to Belsavis at Oriana’s request to assist with educating the children of prisoners on the Republic prison planet, but she had made the choice to leave Belsavis for Odessen shortly after the base was established. Refugees had begun pouring in to the base, and many of them had children they wished to see educated in spite of the destruction of their homes. Vector was surprised Oriana herself hadn’t come to Odessen, but he was certainly grateful that Khatera had done so; perhaps it was simply easier to uproot herself, given that it was just Khatera and her teenaged son.

“How can we be of service, Mistress Suul?” Vector inquired, as the quartermaster hurried off to finish their report. He would have liked to have spent a few more minutes discussing the state of their supplies with the woman, but the list of tasks he needed to accomplish that day was a lengthy one and Khatera did appear to have a state of urgency about her.

Khatera smiled but it didn’t quite ease her worried expression, and she moved in close to Vector, turning herself so that the only person who could see her face was him.

“I don’t want to alarm you,” she said, speaking in precisely the sort of tone that was likely to cause alarm, “but I just spotted your partner stumbling through the compound. He looked … lost.”

She wasn’t the sort of person to be disapproving of another man’s life choices, but the way she spoke suggested to Vector that she thought perhaps Theron might be drunk. ‘Stumbling’ and ‘lost’ were not typically applied to someone in complete control of their faculties, and given that Theron had been involved in the design and maintenance of the base itself it seemed rather unlikely that he could possibly get lost there. But drunk? Yes, he could certainly get himself so drunk that even his implants couldn’t handle it and he’d be so blind he couldn’t find his way back home; he’d demonstrated _that_ well enough in the months since the _Riven_.

Vector shook his head, shoving his own sense of disapproval down deep inside. Theron had made huge leaps and strides these past few months, and the occasional setback was to be expected. It was a bit early in the day to be drinking, but if he’d had his drinking under control he wouldn’t have been considered an alcoholic. At least Vector was reasonably certain he wouldn’t find his partner high on spice; Theron had fought the hardest against that particular addiction, no doubt aided in part by the fact that spice brought back intensely vivid and painful memories of his time with Darth Jadzira. Most people took intoxicants to _escape_ their pain, but for Theron anything stronger than alcohol made it worse. In truth Vector strongly suspected that even alcohol intensified Theron’s memories and flashbacks, but unhealthy coping mechanisms became coping mechanisms for a reason, and Theron had been using alcohol as a crutch long before now.

“Thank you, Mistress Suul,” Vector said at last, aware that Khatera was waiting for an answer. “We shall go check in on him. Did you happen to notice where he was headed?”

“He seemed to be making his way back to his own quarters,” Khatera replied, and Vector silently thanked the woman for not pausing awkwardly before that last part. Space was at a premium at the Alliance base; established couples had their own private quarters, but Theron had gone weeks barely sleeping before he’d finally admitted that sharing space – even with Vector – left him feeling panicky and on the verge of a breakdown. Under normal circumstances the result of that admission would have been either or both Vector and Theron sleeping separately in the singles barracks. Lana had called administrator fiat and arranged for both men to have their own rooms: Vector kept the double-occupancy that had been allotted them as a couple while Theron had been granted a closet-sized room all to himself. It was not the ideal solution and it caused some consternation among the other members of the Alliance, most of whom were expected to bunk in the barracks and didn’t understand why Theron should be so special, but frankly as far as Lana was concerned Vector and Theron had more than earned the consideration. That didn’t stop people from speculating as to why such an arrangement would need to be made, and Vector was grateful that Khatera didn’t appear to be among the complainers.

“Thank you,” Vector said again, clasping the older woman around the arm and squeezing gently. She smiled at him, a sympathetic expression on her face, and gave his hand a careful pat.

Before the situation could devolve into Vector trying to thank Khatera over and over again for showing him and Theron some compassion he released her arm and headed off in the direction of Theron’s quarters. The journey from outside the quartermasters’ station to Theron’s room was not especially far, but it was plenty of time for Vector to work himself into a frenzy of worry on the other man’s behalf.

The days and months since Theron’s rescue from Darth Jadzira – and the subsequent loss of Miranza to Darth Occlus’s service – had been challenging, to say the least. It had taken weeks to purge the drugs from Theron’s system, and watching his lover deal with the combined effects of withdrawal and trauma had been devastating, made all the more so by the fact that Vector had limited experience in dealing with such things and the person most adept at handling Theron’s medical needs had been Miranza. Theron’s physical injuries had been minor, for the most part, but had left no doubt in Vector’s mind as to what his partner had gone through; it didn’t take a doctor to recognize repeated patterns of violence and sexual abuse, and Vector had seen such things before. Theron’s body had healed. His mind, on the other hand …

Darth Jadzira was a master of Force-manipulation and mental sorcery – or rather, had been; Darth Occlus had sent a “gift” of the Sith lord’s right hand, tongue and eyeball, and while Vector was not generally the sort of man who collected trophies he had to admit there was something savagely satisfying about holding in his hands concrete evidence that the woman who had so horrifically abused his partner had met her own violent end. For weeks after his rescue Theron struggled to distinguish the difference between reality and the ghastly nightmares and hallucinations Darth Jadzira had given him, and entire days had passed where he didn’t recognize Vector (or didn’t believe he was real) and couldn’t remember where he was. And when reality did reassert itself Theron was left to face the actual abuse he had suffered at the hands of Darth Jadzira and her servants, which was equally as horrifying and had left its marks all over his body. Then, to top it all off, when Theron was aware of where and when he was he had the additional issue of Miranza’s absence to deal with: he’d spent half his time feeling betrayed and abandoned by her, believing she had left willingly no matter how many times Vector corrected him, and the other half of the time Theron was crippled by guilt and self-blame because Miranza had sacrificed herself for him. The worst part was, Vector was hard-pressed to dissuade him of that notion, because that was pretty much exactly what had happened: Miranza had sold herself to Darth Occlus in order to secure the Sith lord’s aid in rescuing Theron. That it wasn’t Theron’s fault and had been Miranza’s choice seemed to make little difference to Theron.

It had only been within the last month or so that Theron had begun seeming more like himself. He’d taken an active interest in resuming his old duties for the Alliance – including tracking down Master Savarr’s missing spaceship – and had started making an effort to be more social. If he and Vector still maintained separate sleeping arrangements, well, that was just because they both needed their space. If Theron worked long hours rather than get in a full night’s sleep, that wasn’t because he was afraid of nightmares, there was just a lot that needed to be done and only so many hours in which to do it all. If he drank too much and ate too little, that was just him reverting to his old Intelligence lifestyle. He was up, he was active, he was pulling more than his share of the work, so what did it matter if most of his smiles seemed fake and he couldn’t bear to be touched, not even by his lover or his old friends? He was coping. He was moving on.

Vector had heard it all before and, as he approached Theron’s quarters, he steeled himself to hear it all again.

The door to Theron’s room was shut and locked, but that made little difference to Vector. He keyed in the override sequence on the locking mechanism – an unfortunate necessity that Theron had agreed to after one too many close calls – and the door hissed open, revealing the dark, cluttered room beyond.

The scent of rotting food drew Vector’s attention first, and by the time his eyes acclimated to the darkness he was able to pinpoint the source: several plates and discarded takeaway boxes were clustered together on the dresser, all of them with food left untouched and decaying. No doubt some well-meaning person had sent Theron off with a plated dinner or some leftovers in a bag, and he, unwilling to acknowledge that he couldn’t eat, had simply accepted the food and then left it to rot inside his room. Theron ate as little as possible, and while he refused to discuss the matter with Vector, Vector had his own suspicions on why that would be. What went in had to come back out again some way, after all, and for a good long while after his rescue those bodily functions had been painful – in more ways than one – and so to Theron’s mind the less he had to do it the better.

Theron was generally a neat man. A childhood of ascetism and a lifetime on the move had taught him to live sparely and tidily, and so it was shocking to Vector to see how disorganized and unkempt his room was. Clothing and armour were strewn about everywhere: on the floor, over the (otherwise unused) bed, piled on top of the dresser. A stack of datapads had fallen off the dresser and onto the bed, and one of his pistols had been taken apart for cleaning, the various pierces discarded across the comforter along with a bottle of gun oil and some stained cloths. There were liquor bottles everywhere, some empty, some well on their way, none of them more than half full. Theron’s room was dark, messy, and smelled of rotten food, body odour and spilled alcohol.

Vector allowed himself a brief moment to stare in horror and wonder at how things had gotten so bad in so short a time, because surely it hadn’t been that long since he’d last been inside Theron’s room? He gave himself a little shake and stepped inside, closing the door behind him even though that left him trapped with the suffocating darkness and the unpleasantly mingled odours.

Again, space being something of a commodity on the base, the private quarters did not generally have personal ‘freshers. Indeed, Vector’s room did not have its own refresher, nor did Koth’s or Lana’s. There were ‘freshers throughout the base – attached to the barracks, outside the cantina, near the hangar – and everyone just learned to make do with having everyone else in their pocket. But Theron’s post-kidnapping recovery made it difficult for him to feel safe showering or attending to other bodily functions in a shared space, and as such Lana had made a further concession by arranging for him to have a small ‘fresher built into the back of his own tiny, tiny room. It was from this private ‘fresher that Vector finally detected his quarry in the form of a hoarse, choked-off gasp that sounded very much like someone trying to muffle the sound of their own sobs.

“Theron, love,” Vector called, stepping carefully through the detritus on his way to the ‘fresher. “May we come in?”

Theron was seated on the closed lid of the toilet, facing away from the door towards the shower stall that took up the bulk of the available space in the tiny ‘fresher. He was hunched in on himself, hands clenched in his hair as he rocked back and forth on the seat. His shoulders shook but his crying was largely silent, with only the occasional harsh sob breaking out.

“Darling?” There was no answer, but Vector was familiar enough with Theron’s aura that he was able to recognize that the other man was not entirely “present.” The normally vibrant blues and greens of Theron’s aura were muted and shot through with muddied greys, a colour Vector typically associated with confusion and, in Theron’s case, dissociation. He moved closer, making no effort to touch his lover, instead relying upon his own heightened senses to take in the full measure of Theron’s appearance. To his relief he couldn’t see any new injuries, nor did he smell blood – or even alcohol, outside of the stale scent from Theron’s room. He didn’t think Theron had hurt himself but as he drew closer his eyes skimmed the other man’s frame, lingering over his neck and bared arms. Twice Theron had managed to injure himself severely: the first was when he’d cut his arms open with a piece of broken glass in search of the tracking device he had “known” Darth Jadzira had implanted in him; the second when he’d slashed his wrists open in a suicide attempt that had surprised even Vector. Theron hadn’t seemed especially depressed at the time, but he had later admitted to Vector that he’d just felt tired: tired of hurting, tired of being afraid, tired of feeling like his own mind was the enemy. That was the incident which had prompted the emergency override on his door and had very nearly seen him confined to the medbay for the foreseeable future.

Vector had thought he’d been getting better.

Humming quietly – if speech couldn’t get through to Theron, then at least the subvocal intonations of the Killiks might serve to calm him – Vector moved in closer until he was standing directly behind Theron yet still within his peripheral vision. Now that he was in the ‘fresher he could see that a dark towel had been draped over the mirror; glancing back into the bedroom, he saw a sheet serving the same purpose, covering the mirror over the small dresser. Vector wondered how long those had been there.

One of Theron’s hands fell away from where it had been gripping at his hair, and instead his fingers curled around the fabric of Vector’s pants leg. Startled, Vector let himself be drawn closer, until Theron’s face was pressed against his thigh. Vector cautiously stroked his own hand over Theron’s head, coaxing him to unclench from his hair until he was able to run his fingers gently along Theron’s scalp. Theron threw both his arms around Vector’s legs, sobbing against Vector’s hip.

“You’re real,” Theron managed to gasp out, breath warm on Vector’s leg.

“Yes,” Vector acknowledged, resisting the urge to say “Of course.” Sometimes Theron had a hard time knowing the difference. He broadened his stance, worried that Theron’s tight grip on his legs might unbalance him and how badly it would upset Theron for Vector to come crashing down on top of him. “We are real. We are here.”

“I hate this.”

Vector was silent, just brushing his fingertips gently through Theron’s hair. He wanted to get to the bottom of Theron’s breakdown – he had been doing so well – but had to let things happen in their own good time. Theron was only gradually starting to come back to himself, to recognize his surroundings and Vector’s presence; there was no need to rush this. Once he was fully certain where he was, then he would talk about what had happened to set him off. Vector thought of all of the things that might have upset him, but the truth of the matter was that the list was simply far too long, and on the bad days even the smallest thing might have been enough to tip him over the edge.

Vector thought about the little box in his quarters, the decorative wooden box containing a mummified hand and a desiccated tongue and eyeball, and he smiled grimly. It was not a pleasant expression.

_She’s dead, love, and she can never hurt you again._ Except, of course, that Darth Jadzira _could_ hurt Theron again – that she hurt him every time his mind played tricks on him, every time something triggered a flashback or a painful memory. Darth Jadzira was dead, but Theron was _still_ hurting.

Vector had to force himself to relax, to keep the tension from coiling in his hands and legs where Theron would feel it. This wasn’t about him or the anger he felt toward Darth Jadzira – and towards Amrielle, for selling him to that monster in the first place. This was about Theron, and whatever he needed to be at peace with himself again.

“What happened, love?” he asked at last, judging that enough time had passed for the question to be safe.

Theron sighed heavily. “Caedan.”

_“What?!”_ Vector drew back, instinct nearly causing him to turn on his heel, march out of Theron’s quarters and go off in search of the Jedi. He’d known Theron had been hoping to run into the Outlander sometime today in order to show off the spaceship he’d managed to locate, but Vector would never have suspected the Jedi might be capable of upsetting Theron so. Thoughts of tearing through the base in search of Master Savarr filled Vector’s mind, along with just what exactly he would do to the man should he happen to locate him, and how likely it would be that Lana would be able to find a replacement Outlander on relatively short notice.

“Whoa, hey, it’s nothing like that,” Theron said, tightening his arms around Vector’s legs to prevent him from going anywhere. His face, in the dim ‘fresher lighting, was still glassy-eyed but a rueful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “He didn’t … It’s stupid. My brain is just …”

Disentangling himself, Vector eased down beside Theron, the toilet lid creaking a little under their combined weight. It wasn’t the most comfortable perch, but he felt less likely to topple over, and after a moment’s hesitation Theron leaned against him, resting his cheek on Vector’s shoulder. Physical contact had been rare between them ever since the _Riven_ and Vector held his breath a little, his chest tightening as he waited to see how far Theron would be willing to go in pressing in beside him. He wasn’t at all about to complain about Theron’s need to avoid contact – stars knew, Vector understood – but it was such sweet agony to be this close to Theron and not be allowed to touch him.

“It isn’t stupid, love,” Vector said quietly, wanting to draw the other man into his arms and whisper all the assurances he needed to hear. “Tell us what happened.”

Theron swallowed, nodding against Vector’s shoulder. “I ran into him out on the overlook and finally had a chance to have Tora swing by with the _Vigilant._ He was just … He was happy. He was happy, and he hugged me, and …”

_Ah._ Vector didn’t say it out loud, but when Theron trailed off he didn’t need for the other man to continue. He understood. If Vector, Theron’s partner and lover, couldn’t always assume that it was safe for him to touch Theron, then Caedan Savarr – practically an unknown, for all the flirtations exchanged between them before – certainly couldn’t. Theron had likely already been feeling keyed up and anxious about talking to Caedan in the first place; as much as he had liked the man before, he was especially leery around Force-users now, and Caedan was one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. Then, to have been touched by him – and not just touched, but trapped within a circle of unfamiliar arms, a moment of unexpected contact for which Theron had not been prepared … Yes, Vector understood.

“It’s not a big deal,” Theron said, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He was shaking a little bit and his voice had a thick quality to it that suggested he’d been crying for a while before Vector had found him. No, not a big deal at all – just enough to trigger a flashback or a dissociative episode and send him fleeing back to the safety of his private quarters.

Vector wasn’t about to argue the matter with Theron. They’d had this discussion before, and no matter how many times he reassured Theron that his “episodes” weren’t his fault and that they would work through all of this, he knew Theron struggled to believe it. Theron saw himself as damaged goods, and in his experiences people didn’t stick around when things got that complicated. That Vector did stick around – and, indeed, Miranza had as well; her current absence, while certainly damaging for Theron’s psyche, was an aberration rather than the norm – continued to be a source of delighted bafflement for him.

“Have you hurt yourself?” Vector asked him gently, the words _again_ or _this time_ deliberately left unspoken. Most of the times Theron had hurt himself, it had been accidental. Only the one time had been intentional, and even then, Theron hadn’t truly wanted to die (or so he’d told Vector afterwards, when they’d sat together in the wee hours of the morning and Theron had finally stopped apologizing for the attempt). _I just wanted not to hurt._

Theron looked down at himself, then shook his head, letting out a small sigh of relief that Vector cautiously echoed.

“Just gave myself a headache,” he admitted.

“Would you like to come back with us and sleep in our room for a time?” Another gentle question, although it was impossible for Vector to hide how much the answer meant to him. If Theron told him no it would be all right – it had to be Theron’s choice and it had to be freely given, because Theron wanted to, not because he felt guilty or afraid of hurting Vector’s feelings.

They’d slept together so many times in the years after Darth Marr’s death and over the forming of the Alliance, and yet Vector could count on one hand the number of times they’d shared a bed since Theron had been rescued from Darth Jadzira. Two hands, if Vector only counted the numbers of times they’d slept in the same room (and the early days when Theron had been oblivious and near-catatonic didn’t count). It wasn’t about sex – Theron was nowhere near ready for that – but stars, Vector missed sharing a bed with him. He’d come to dread sleeping alone, with both his partners distant and untouchable yet for such incredibly different reasons.

“Yeah, I think I would,” Theron replied at last, a shy expression on his face that made Vector want to kiss until he was breathless. “If that’d be okay?”

“It would be perfect,” Vector said, standing and drawing Theron up to his feet. He made a mental note to ask one of the protocol droids to clean Theron’s rooms in his absence. The mirrors should remain covered – Theron wasn’t talking about it, but of a certainty there was a reason for it – but the spoiled food, dirty laundry and empty liquor bottles could be cleared away, the room cleaned and aired out. Perhaps he might be able to convince Theron to eat a ration bar or share a proper dinner with him, as well. He was struggling with self-care, but that was something Vector knew how to assist him with even if the rest of Theron’s problems remained outside his ability to manage.

“I love you,” Theron said, as Vector led him from his rooms, their hands lightly clasped in a grip that Theron could easily escape from if he needed to. “You know that, right?”

“We do know that, yes.” Vector gave his lover’s hand a gentle squeeze. “We love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Haunted When the Minutes Drag" is by Love & Rockets.
> 
> Some dialogue is taken from _Knights of the Fallen Empire: The Alliance_.
> 
> Poor Caedan ... Thirty-plus chapters before he even gets to make an appearance, and the first thing he does is go and break Theron. :P


	34. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter in which a ghost honours her bargain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for consensual but not exactly wanted sexual contact.

_**Unknown, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Fire. She was fire.

The flames licked through her, running through her veins and dancing along her skin, and it was a wonder that the man above her couldn’t feel it. His flesh didn’t blacken and char where it touched hers. Smoke didn’t rise up above them in the thick black clouds of an ongoing inferno. He didn’t recoil, screaming, blisters forming everywhere his body came into contact with hers. She was fire and he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t touch it.

She entertained an image of him engulfed in her flames and tried not to think about how much the idea pleased her.

His hips shifted, pinning her down against the mattress, and his wet, fleshy lips sought hers. She feigned a moan, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at how easily fooled he was. She was going to have bruises on her wrists and thighs; he was stronger than he looked and it pleased him to utilize that strength against her. And she bruised so easily these days.

“You’re so beautiful,” he groaned against her mouth, and she had to force away the memory of the _other_ two men who had whispered that to her. She refused to think of them, not like this, not when she was … like this.

She was … like this … a lot. As a consequence, she seldom allowed herself to think of them. They were safe, that was all that mattered.

He grunted, forehead dripping sweat onto her face, and the rapid-fire pistoning of his hips increased and took on an erratic pace. He _finally_ seemed to be getting close; it felt like he’d been thrusting into her forever and frankly she was beginning to chafe. One hand came up and settled on her breast, careless fingers squeezing around already-tender skin. He pinched her nipple, twisting it, and she forced another moan that sounded fake to her own ears, wishing he’d be more gentle with her. Theron would have –

_No._

Once again she forced away thoughts of him and Vector. It might have made things easier for her to fantasize that they were the ones she was with, but she didn’t want to sully her memories of them by bringing them into ... this. Her time with them was perfect and pure, and she wasn’t going to have it in any way connected to what she did for Darth Occlus.

The man grunted again and shifted back, sliding his hands under her thighs to position her better for himself, forcing her knees up to her chest. She hid a wince when he re-entered her; she _was_ chafing and he had all the gentleness of a bull nerf in its first rut. His lips roamed her exposed throat, pressing wet, sloppy kisses into her flesh, and when he bit down on the curve of her neck she managed at the last second to turn her pained, annoyed hiss into a sound of pleasure. Then, finally, he made a noise like a dying animal and slammed into her hard, his hips giving a series of short, rapid jerks before he spilled himself inside her.

Thankfully he wasn’t the sort to cuddle afterwards. He rolled off her, breathing hard, and gave her hip a pat that might have been appreciative or might have been him trying to shove her off the bed.

“Go clean yourself up,” he instructed her, with another, rougher pat. “He’ll be here soon.”

_Fire. I am fire._

Face set in simpering admiration, she pushed herself up off the mattress and shuffled into the ‘fresher. She didn’t look at herself in the mirror over the sink as she used ice-cold water to wash his fluids off her. In the unforgiving ‘fresher light she could see the bruises around her wrists where he’d pinned her down; experimentally she flexed her fingers, twisting her wrists to test range of motion. It was uncomfortable but that would pass.

She told herself that a lot these days.

She kept one ear tuned to the bedroom while she tidied herself up. She could hear him moving around, no doubt straightening the room up before his friend arrived. She had been hoping the Moff would have shown up earlier; she hadn’t expected the officer would want to have a go with her by himself first before the main event. Whoever would have expected him to have the stamina for two rounds in one evening? But the moment he’d escorted her into his private suite he had been all over her and while she could have just slit his throat and dumped his body in the bathtub while she waited for the Moff, that hadn’t been the plan. It was easier to stick with the plan.

The plan was her own. Darth Occlus gave her Ghost her targets and the expected outcome of her assignments, but she didn’t micro-manage the way Sith Intelligence had those last few months she had grudgingly been a part of them. The Sith lord had wanted Miranza for her skills and had the good sense to let her servant determine for herself how best to complete her assignments. So long as the job was done it didn’t much matter to Darth Occlus how Miranza accomplished things. She wanted results, not detailed primers on the arts of seduction and assassination.

The Moff was a cagey man, wary of assassination attempts and heavily guarded at all times. Well, _almost_ all times. He was discreet about his sexual appetites, but Miranza had learned that he had a particular love of threesomes (and more-somes) with his officers and a pliant, willing girl. She could be that girl, and his favourite officer was far less cautious. It was easy enough to stage a random encounter at the cantina, and after a few drinks and some heavy flirting, all it had taken was her whispered confession that she never could resist a man in uniform for him to lead her up to his suite. She hadn’t been prepared for the officer to want a turn with her first, but it was a minor deviation that she could work with.

Even if it left her wanting to claw her own skin off.

She heard the sound of the outer door opening and quickened her pace. Donning the officer’s discarded dress shirt she slipped out of the ‘fresher in time to meet the Moff and two of his personal bodyguards. She hadn’t expected him to have guards in the room with him – hopefully he didn’t intend to share her with them in addition to his officer – but she wasn’t bothered by the addition. The Moff’s eyes lit up when he saw her standing there, sex-tousled in his officer’s rumpled dress shirt, and she watched him exchange appreciative glances with his officer.

“Nicely done, Jerris,” the Moff said to his officer. Behind him the two bodyguards also exchanged glances, both men looking suitably impressed. One was clearly a professional: he looked Miranza over, assessing her as a threat, but his gaze didn’t linger on her assets any longer than it took for him to determine that she was mostly naked and completely unarmed. His companion, on the other hand, had to drag his eyes away from her breasts, and it was impossible for her to fail to notice the growing bulge that tented his uniform pants.

“Thank you, sir,” the officer replied, pleased at the praise. He moved towards Miranza and caught her by the wrist, tugging her in close to him. He had donned a pair of boxer shorts that did nothing to disguise his own growing interest. Under different circumstances - such as with a man she actually _wanted_ to sleep with - she might have been impressed by his stamina. As it was she had to repress a growing urge to jab his eyeballs out with her thumbs. His hand squeezed around her wrist and he turned her so that she was facing the Moff. “She’s quite the little freak, sir.”

“Is she, now?” The Moff moved in close, hands reaching out to undo the few buttons she had done up on the officer’s shirt, drawing it open so he could appreciate the bared flesh underneath. He playfully flicked one of her nipples and she moaned obligingly, leaning into his touch. His eyes lifted to her face and his hands came up to her shoulders, pushing her down onto her knees before he began tugging at the belt at his waist. “Is that true? Are you a freak?”

 _Fire,_ Miranza thought. _I am fire._

When it was over she dragged the four dead men into the ‘fresher, dumping their bodies into the bathtub. It was hard work; the Moff and both of his bodyguards were especially heavy, their bodies taking on that density that made them feel like they weighed ten times as much in death as they had in life. Once the bodies were in the tub she gave herself a breather, sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet to let her trembling limbs rest from the effort of carting around four heavy men. The flames inside her were beginning to die down, leaving her drained and exhausted. She had enough left to deal with the bodyguards she knew would be waiting outside the private suite, and then after that she would return to her master and could rest.

Energy momentarily restored Miranza stood and left the ‘fresher. The Moff’s dress shirt was discarded on the floor; she bent and picked it up, slipping into it and doing up the middle two buttons to provide some semblance of modesty. Then, plastering that damned simpering smile back on her face, she went to the door and opened it.

The Moff’s remaining two bodyguards stood, one on either side of the door, and immediately turned their attention to her.

“His worship says the party’s not done yet,” she told them, picking one to deliberately eye. “He wants you to join us.”

It wasn’t the first time the Moff had invited all of his bodyguards to take part in his extracurricular activities, and the two men followed her back into the suite eagerly enough. Their steps came up short when they realized none of the other men were in the bedroom, but by then Miranza had already closed and locked the door behind them, and she was moving before they had time to act.

It felt so good to let the fire out. She exploded into action, the heel of her palm cracking into the first man’s face, his nose crunching and blood spurting under the sudden onslaught. A second strike caught him in the chest, sending him staggering back a few paces, no doubt surprised at how this one tiny woman should be so fast and so strong.

Fire of a different sort lanced through her side, and Miranza turned, twisting away from the second man’s vibroblade, too late to avoid his attack. She reached into the fire and smoke to retrieve her daggers from their hiding place and had that moment of satisfaction at seeing his eyes widen as she conjured something from nothing. And then she was moving again, lashing out with her own blades, forcing him backwards as he attempted to block her strikes with his weapon.

She was at home in the violence, dancing the steps of a dance she had performed countless times before. The fire in her veins propelled her forward: jab, parry, duck, sweep out with one bare foot to catch one of the men around the ankle and send him toppling. Her daggers flashed, the downward sweep ending in a spray of blood and an abruptly cut off cry. Just for the sheer joy of it she embraced the fire and vanished into a cloud of black smoke, reappearing behind the remaining bodyguard in time to sink her blade in to that soft spot in his back where the armour didn’t provide enough cover. He went stiff as a board and dropped to the ground, and then, too soon, it was over and both men were dead.

Two more bodies were dragged into the ‘fresher and deposited into the bathtub. She took a few quick pictures of the dead Moff, enough to ensure that he was recognizable, and sent them to Darth Occlus. As she waited for confirmation and perhaps follow-up orders she sat down on the toilet lid again and examined the cut along her side.

The wound was long but not deep; her ribs had served their purpose, preventing the bodyguard from jabbing his blade into her squishy internal organs. She would likely need stitches but was just as unlikely to receive them, and she wasn’t flexible enough to be able to sew up her own side. It was a painful burn but she thought she could ignore it.

Her comm chimed. A single message from her master: _Good._ “Good” was good; it meant no follow-up was required, that she could finish the assignment and return to home base on Dromund Kaas. She didn’t need to hunt down stragglers or go through the dead Moff’s personal effects or move on to some secondary assignment, and that suited Miranza just fine. She would have been happy to engage in further violence, but she was too tired and sore to play the spy.

Miranza retrieved a capsule from her makeup bag and carried it delicately over to the tub. She cracked it open and dumped the contents over the bodies, the alchemical solution beginning to hiss and bubble the instant it contacted flesh. A splash of water sped the process up, and Miranza sat back on the toilet to wait for Darth Occlus’s solution to dissolve the bodies. In Imperial Intelligence she had had access to similar chemicals, but most of those left remains that still needed to be dealt with: bits of bone and tooth, hanks of hair, sometimes clothing or accessories. Darth Occlus’s Sith alchemy had created something that worked better than the stuff Intelligence used, and all Miranza had to do was wait for it to work – and then rinse out the tub afterwards. She was careful to avoid getting any of the solution on herself; as handy as it was disposing of the evidence, she didn’t particularly fancy any part of _her_ dissolving.

Another time she would have whipped out a datapad and worked on some crossword puzzles while the bodies were destroyed, but now Miranza simply sat on the lid of the toilet and waited, hands resting on her bare thighs, blood under her fingernails and oozing steadily down her side. After a few minutes, once she was certain there would be no spillage from the bathtub, she got up and headed back out into the bedroom to tidy up the evidence. The clean-up didn’t have to be perfect, just good enough that hotel cleaning staff wouldn’t notice anything amiss and it would be days before the Moff and his team were reported missing. Darth Occlus would send a professional team to handle the bulk of the evidence disposal and clean-up; Miranza was the assassin, not the maid.

She made a note to have the cleaners destroy the sheets on the bed.

Once the Moff and his bodyguards were thoroughly disposed of and the bedroom was tidy enough for Miranza’s liking she headed back into the ‘fresher and turned the shower on to clean out the tub. She let it run for a few minutes, the hot water sluicing away the remaining bits of blood and gristle and washing away the last of Darth Occlus’s solution, then stripped off her borrowed shirt and let it fall onto the floor. Hand out, she tested the water to make sure the temperature was to her liking, then stepped into the tub and turned her face towards the spray.

The cut along her ribs ached, a hot line of pain that would need to be tended to soon. Now that the violence had ended and the Moff and his bodyguards were all dead she could feel the fire inside her body easing off, hot flames giving way to banked embers. She could reach that fire again if she needed to – thanks to her master it would always be there – but for now she was exhausted and a myriad of aches and pains were clamoring for her attention. She wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed between Vector and Theron, and let the two of them cuddle her and care for her. That wouldn’t be happening, of course: her tenure with Darth Occlus was far from over and even once it was over she wasn’t sure either man would want her back. She had known her master would change her, but she hadn’t realized how _much_ and how _deeply_ the change would be wrought.

Miranza scrubbed blood out from underneath her fingernails and let the hot water wash over her. Fire, she was fire – and in that fire, something else, something dangerous and monstrous.

The price of Theron’s life was her soul. Miranza was content with her bargain. He would say he wasn’t worth it, but he was such an idiot sometimes. Perhaps Vector could help him understand. She was fire. She didn’t want to burn them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Burn" is by The Cure and is on the soundtrack from the original _The Crow_ movie.


	35. Stripped Down to the Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Progress is made between Theron and Vector.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some (completely 100% consensual) smut, and trigger warnings for frank but non-explicit discussion of sexual assault.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

_Coarse, brittle stone crunched under his boots, crumbling into dust with every footstep. Everywhere he looked familiar landmarks were reduced to rubble and ash, rendering the landscape into something strange and unknown and alien. The air was dry, drier than Korriban, drier than Tatooine, so dry that each breath seemed to draw the moisture from his lungs and coat his mouth and throat with dust. Static electricity crackled around him and made the ends of his hair lift._

_There were no auras anywhere. Auras implied life and a connection to the galaxy, and the Sith Emperor had robbed Ziost of that. There were no auras because there was no life._

_He took another step, the fingers of one hand rubbing together, sticky and stiff with dried blood. His hands were red to the elbows, the sleeves of his jacket darkened to black. The staff of a halberd was loose in his right hand, the blades of the head still dripping with blood, the weight of it dragging his arm down._

_In the distance he could see what looked to be some sort of statue, two blackened figures twined together in a gruesome parody of lust. Scholarly instincts had him trying to guess the artist or the style – early Sith, perhaps, going by the stark, twisted lines – but some other instinct screamed at him to stay away, that things were not as they appeared and that he didn’t want to get any closer. He moved forward anyway, drawn inexorably toward the statue in an attempt to get a better look at the faces._

_A harsh, dry wind picked up, blowing dust in his eyes and sending a tumbleweed bouncing across his path. The wind plucked at the statue and to his horror he watched as familiar features began crumbling away, dark ashes twisting in the void._

_He opened his mouth to scream but no sound come out._

Vector jolted awake, heart hammering in his chest and throat aching with the effort of screaming. Strong, warm arms were wrapped around him and the sensation was both comfortably familiar and yet painfully alien, and it took him a few seconds of post-nightmare confusion to realize why this should be so.

Theron was holding him. Theron was the one who had pulled him out of his nightmare, coiled his arms around him, and whispered soothing nonsense into his ear.

Stars, it had been a long time since someone had held Vector like this.

Vector closed his eyes, pressing his lips together to suppress the sob he could feel bubbling up inside his chest, lodged in his throat. The instant his eyes were closed his nightmare boiled to the surface again, that last fleeting image of Theron’s and Miranza’s faces before their blackened husks collapsed into dust, ashes caught up by the breeze. The sob escaped his lips, turning into a broken, hoarse gasp, and Theron’s arms tightened around him.

“’S over,” Theron murmured drowsily, warm mouth pressing gentle kisses against Vector’s temple. “Just a bad dream. ‘S okay, I got you.”

“We’re awake,” Vector replied, reluctant to break the spell and risk losing the sensation of Theron’s comforting arms around him, but wanting to give Theron the chance to pull away if he couldn’t handle this degree of intimacy when Vector was conscious. “We’re … we are all right.”

To Vector’s surprise Theron didn’t draw back. Instead he slung his arm over Vector’s hip and pressed in closer, nuzzling his face against Vector’s shoulder. Coarse stubble rubbed over Vector’s skin, more than a five o’clock shadow but less than the beginnings of a beard: Theron had become haphazard in his grooming, struggling to maintain his appearance on days when he couldn’t bear to look himself in the mirror. Vector didn’t press; if Theron wanted his help shaving then he would ask, but on his bad days the intimacy required of grooming was just as terrifying for him as staring at his own reflection.

“Want to talk about it?” Theron asked.

_No,_ Vector thought, but out loud he said simply, “Ziost.”

“Ah.” There was a faint hint of surprise in Theron’s voice, but he didn’t push for details. It had been a while since Vector had last had a nightmare about Ziost – in truth, there were so many other horrible subjects to choose from, and of late his bad dreams had been about Theron’s captivity or Miranza’s absence. It seemed almost ludicrous that he should dream about what he knew _hadn’t_ happened rather than all the awful things that _had_. Or were, although in Miranza’s case all Vector could do was speculate on what was happening to her. She had refused to elaborate on the nature of her service to Darth Occlus, other than to say that it was nothing she hadn’t done before. Unfortunately for Vector’s ease of mind “nothing she hadn’t done before” covered rather a lot of ground, and his imagination was far too eager to supply nightmarish suggestions on how the Sith lord could be using his wife. Telling himself that Darth Occlus was nothing at all like Darth Jadzira did little to assuage Vector’s concerns; just because Darth Occlus wasn’t a rabid kath-hound didn’t mean Miranza wasn’t going to be bitten.

Vector shifted onto his back, staring up at the rough hewn stone ceiling over the bed. Theron shifted with him, one arm draping across his stomach, fingers brushing lightly against Vector’s hip. The bedroom was cool but Theron’s body was warm and familiar, even if he had lost weight in the past few months and it had felt like ages since they had last cuddled like this.

“I’m sorry I haven’t …,” Theron began, trailing off uncertainly before he could finish. _Been here,_ he could have said. _Been functional. Been myself lately._ There were a lot of ways he could complete that sentence and none of them mattered to Vector.

“You’re here, darling,” Vector replied, trying to infuse as much depth and meaning into those three words as he possibly could. Every day since the _Riven_ had been a struggle: Theron had been a drowning man fighting against the rising tide, unable to grasp onto a lifeline or a buoy to save his own life. He’d been catatonic for days, and then once he’d fought his way back to full consciousness he’d been fearful, lost and haunted. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and couldn’t attend to even the simplest of needs or functions. His mind had fought him at every turn, dark memories and evil nightmares trying to drag him back under, unable to discern the difference between reality and the fiction Darth Jadzira’s Force-powers had trapped him in. It was over and he was safe, but he couldn’t fully grasp that notion any more; Darth Jadzira had stolen the concept of safety from him, and Darth Occlus had taken away one of his two pillars of support when she had claimed Miranza for herself.

Theron made some noncommittal sound against Vector’s shoulder before sighing heavily. When he spoke his lips brushed against Vector’s skin: “I’m supposed to be the one calming _you_ down for a change.”

“Ah, yes.” Vector let out an amused huff and settled onto his back, folding his arms across his bare stomach. “By all means, then, continue. We shan’t interrupt.”

Snorting, Theron shifted so that he was propped up on one elbow, the fingers of his opposite hand trailing lightly over Vector’s side. For a brief moment Vector simply held his breath, afraid that any response on his part would cause Theron to stop and then the two of them would separate again, a foot of space between them on the bed. Not that Vector minded Theron putting space between them (all right, yes, he _minded,_ but he also _understood_ ).

Vector let his breath out in a slow exhalation as Theron’s hands continued their steady exploration. His fingers were gentle, almost hesitant – as if Theron was afraid Vector’s skin would burn him, or that Vector would reject his touch. Vector forced himself to stillness, wanting very much to reciprocate but knowing that Theron needed to take his time, needed to have the freedom to explore on his own. If it had been a long time since Theron had held Vector, it had been longer still since they had been intimate, and even if this slow, gentle caressing never went anywhere Vector intended to savour every second of it. If this was the last time Theron was going to touch him – if, come morning, he would retreat back into nightmares and hallucinations, or stay hidden in his own room again – he meant to enjoy it.

“I miss her,” Theron whispered, eyes focused on the trail of soft, dark hair between Vector’s naval and the parts of him still hidden beneath the fall of the sheets. “I’m worried about her.”

Theron knew, somewhat dimly, where Miranza was and what she was doing. It wasn’t the sort of thing Vector felt comfortable keeping from the other man, and yet he knew Theron would blame himself for Miranza’s absence. (And he did.) It amazed Vector that Theron could be respectful of Miranza’s choices while also simultaneously believing himself unworthy of them – that he could respect that Miranza chose to sacrifice herself in order to save him, yet also utterly incapable of believing himself worthy of being saved. Theron understood that Miranza had felt it would be impossible to rescue him without enlisting Darth Occlus’s assistance, but had she asked his opinion on the matter he would have told her not to bother. As if she and Vector would just _leave_ him with Darth Jadzira! Vector had known that would be Theron’s response, and so he had held off on telling the other man the details for as long as possible, giving Theron as much time to heal and process as he could before letting him know the cost.

“She will be home soon,” Vector replied. He hadn’t told Theron exactly when Miranza would be freed from her indentured servitude; he didn’t trust Darth Occlus to be completely faithful to the dates – one year plus thirty-three additional days for every other person rescued – and didn’t want Theron to have his hopes dashed when Miranza didn’t return precisely when expected. If, for some reason, Darth Occlus let Miranza go when promised – or, somehow, miraculously, _earlier_ – Vector wanted it to be a pleasant surprise. If it was later (and Vector was almost positive it would be later, that Darth Occlus would conceive of some excuse to keep Miranza for longer) then he was the only one whose hopes would be dashed.

Theron made another sound, neither of agreement nor disagreement, and returned his attention to his explorations of Vector’s body. After a few minutes of gentle touches and caresses he began tracing Vector’s skin with his lips, earning himself a startled huff from Vector.

“I can stop, if you want me to?” Theron said, speaking the words against Vector’s flesh, his breath hot and damp and sending delicious goosebumps across Vector’s body.

“Please don’t,” Vector replied, impressed by how calm he sounded, as though his heart wasn’t threatening to explode from his chest at every light touch. “Not unless you wish it.”

“Nah. I’m good.” Theron bent and brushed his lips along Vector’s collarbone, smirking faintly when the movement of his mouth earned him another startled gasp. He leaned in and captured Vector’s mouth with his own, swallowing the startled, hungry noises the Joiner couldn’t prevent himself from making. Stars, it had been so long – too long – and even this light, cautious contact had all the blood rushing to Vector’s groin so rapidly that it was a good thing he was lying down already because he felt slightly dizzy from it.

Vector reached up to cup his hand along Theron’s jaw only for Theron’s fingers to curl around his wrist, pulling him away. Theron leaned back a little and shook his head, his hazel eyes clouded. His grip on Vector’s wrist was like durasteel.

“Don’t,” Theron said softly, unable to meet Vector’s gaze. “Just … let me do this, okay?”

Nodding, Vector allowed himself to sink back against the pillows, his hand going limp and loose in Theron’s grasp. “As you wish.”

Theron loosened his grip, brushing his lips over the faint marks his fingers had imprinted around Vector’s wrist. He let Vector settle his hands back on his stomach, the Joiner making a great show of linking his fingers together to ensure he wouldn’t try to interrupt Theron again. Faint smirk returning, Theron kissed Vector’s clasped hands, then trailed his lips down along the curve of one arm, up to his shoulder, and then down across Vector’s chest. Vector permitted himself a content sigh when Theron placed a kiss on each nipple before focusing on the indentations of Vector’s ribs. The pressure of Theron’s tongue was just heavy enough to avoid being ticklish as he marked a languid path along Vector’s flank, licking a wet trail from his ribs down to his hipbones.

There was the briefest moment of hesitation when Theron got to the sheet swept low on Vector’s hips. His eyes flashed up to Vector’s face, but whatever he saw there seemed to reassure him, and to Vector’s immense relief Theron tugged the sheet downwards in one quick motion that left him completely exposed. Cool air swirled around Vector’s groin and then Theron leaned in and, as Vector held his breath, ran his lips and tongue along the length of Vector’s cock.

It was impossible for Vector to disguise his reaction, even if he had wanted to – which he didn’t. He was rock-hard, and when Theron finally took him into his mouth he couldn’t repress the long, almost pained-sounding groan that escaped his lips. Stars, it had been such a long time …

That earlier hesitation returned, and when Theron began to work his mouth over and around Vector’s cock it was with a slight sense of uncertainty, as though he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing or he’d lost whatever familiarity they’d had between them before. Vector tried to be encouraging without being pushy: whatever Theron wanted to do was fine – it was more than fine, it was perfect, _please for the love of the Force don’t stop_ – he was happy just having Theron touch him again, it wasn’t necessary for Theron to –

Theron had scarcely begun and yet Vector already felt that familiar tightening in his balls that told him he was close to the edge. He lifted one hand from his stomach, not sure if he should push Theron away or encourage him to continue or –

Releasing Vector with an audible smacking of his lips, Theron curled the fingers of one hand around Vector’s cock and worked him, hard and fast, his thumb circling around the tip. Vector groaned, allowing his hips to buck into Theron’s hand, and then he was coming, spilling across Theron’s fingers and over his own stomach. When he finished and Theron stopped stroking the last few spurts from him, Theron got up and went over to the dresser, helping himself to a handful of tissues that he used to clean Vector up. Vector allowed himself to be tended to, collapsing back against the pillow and waiting for the thundering in his chest to subside. It wasn’t just an accelerated heartbeat that he was feeling, but rather the sensation that his heart was about to explode from sheer happiness and relief.

“Come here,” Vector said, after Theron got up again to dispose of the tissues. He motioned at the bed beside him. “We’d like to –”

“No,” Theron said, then cleared his throat and added awkwardly, “It’s okay. I’m not … Not right now, okay? I just wanted …” He shrugged, ducking his head to hide the heated blush on his cheeks. “I just wanted to touch you.”

Vector nodded, trying to think of the safest response. He had the sense that Theron was on the precipice of turning and running, and the last thing he wanted was to scare the other man away.

“You may always touch us,” he said at last, tone gentle. “However you please.”

It was Theron’s turn to nod, and he sank down on the bed beside Vector, facing away from him. He clasped his hands in his lap, hiding – although Vector had already noted it – his own exposed groin, and the fact that his own body wasn’t responding at all. Vector didn’t see any need to draw attention to that fact, nor did he take it personally. Recovery was a slow process, and trying to rush him through it would only make things worse. So long as they were together Vector was confident they could walk that road – _together._

“I’m not a whore,” Theron said, the words tumbling out unbidden, seemingly apropos of nothing. He glanced at Vector over his shoulder, his body still facing away. His shoulders were stiff, lines of tension evident in the muscles of his bare back. “I’m _not._ This isn’t the only thing I’m good for.”

Once again Vector was left wracking his brain for the best and safest response. This was unfamiliar ground for him – for them both – and he was fearful that saying the wrong thing in reply might set Theron back. He could say that he didn’t see anything particularly wrong with promiscuity or prostitution (because he _didn’t_ ), taking into account both possible meanings of the word ‘whore,’ but it was clear that in this precise moment Theron _did_ have a problem with it, or at least with it applied to himself. He could say that he knew Theron wasn’t a whore, or that sex wasn’t the only thing Theron was good for, but he didn’t want to imply that he thought those were things to be ashamed of. Vector didn’t need to be perceptive to know precisely where this was coming from and where Theron’s dark thoughts were leading him, but Force help him, he had no idea how best to tackle it.

“Do you wish to talk about it?” he asked finally.

Theron’s shoulders stiffened, and he let out a humourless laugh. “No. But I probably should.”

Vector nodded slowly, keeping his face open and expressionless. He wriggled upwards into a sitting position and set his back against the headboard, motioning for Theron to join him. After a moment of hesitation Theron did so, coming and settling against Vector’s side, his head pillowed on the Joiner’s thigh. It was more intimate than Vector had been expecting, but the Joiner certainly wasn’t complaining.

“She had a … a guard captain,” Theron began. No need for Vector to ask who “she” was: Theron hadn’t been able to utter Darth Jadzira’s name once since his rescue. “He was her favourite, probably because he was every bit as sick and twisted as –” He grimaced, eyes closed, and Vector ran a cautious hand through his hair, soothing him. “There was a tiny Twi’lek he liked to play with, just this … pale blue girl with huge green eyes … and she was so … so tiny. Frail, you know?”

Another nod from Vector, noncommittal. He could well imagine the type, and how popular she would have been among the sorts of monsters Darth Jadzira would have kept on staff. Monsters like her tended to be drawn to one of two types: the frail, delicate victims - such as this blue-skinned Twi’lek girl - and the strong, stalwart protector-types who were harder to break. Types like Theron.

“The guard captain liked to … he’d bring his whole squad down, make her … service them. They always hurt her, and if I tried to stop it, they were worse.” Vector understood without Theron elaborating: coming forward to protect the Twi’lek just made himself an obvious target, because hurting _her_ upset _him_ and it became a case of killing two birds with one stone. “So I … I made it into a game. Like it was some kind of competition between us – between me and her – and she was winning, because he favoured her. ‘ _How many cocks did you suck today, Blue?’_ I’d ask her, and she’d call me _boc’ara_ and give me a number, and I’d … I’d challenge the captain’s men to let me keep up.”

_Bo’cara._ Vector smiled, although his cheeks felt stiff and his eyes were burning. The word was Twi’leki for ‘idiot’ – more specifically, it meant she was saying Theron was “smart like a rock.” He didn’t imagine people were in a hurry to exchange names in Darth Jadzira’s custody. There was little point in getting close to someone who was most likely going to be killed – slowly and horribly – in a matter of days.

_Idiot indeed,_ Vector thought, carding his fingers through Theron’s hair. His chest ached at the thought. _Oh, Theron …_

“And they did,” Theron continued. His eyes were still closed, faint traces of wetness clinging to his lashes, and he pressed his cheek against Vector’s thigh. He sounded … not satisfied, exactly, but pleased with himself, in a resigned sort of way. “So … I’d … I’d win, and she … Blue … It’d be less she had to … to take. They hurt me less, too. Because I didn’t fight them. Because I was ... enthusiastic. Better me than her, right?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath, irritably wiping a hand at his watering eyes, and cleared his throat.

“Afterwards, when they were all … finished … the captain would tell me I was a pretty whore, and that I was … I was good … and that was all I’d be good for.” Burying his face against Vector’s leg he finished, voice cracking, “Samar used to say the same things.”

“Oh, _Theron,_ ” Vector whispered. He suddenly wished he hadn’t let Theron touch him so intimately earlier. He wished he had known what Theron had been through so that he could mitigate the damage and avoid dredging up any of these terrible dark memories.

“I hate this,” Theron murmured against his skin. “I hate feeling like my body isn’t mine and like I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I hate how kriffing easy it is to believe everything those bastards said and how she … she was just able to get in there, you know? Inside my mind? And just …” He waggled his fingers beside his temple. “Just do whatever the fuck she wanted to in there. She couldn’t force me to do what she wanted, but she … There were other things she could do.”

_He gave us hope._ Vector remembered the words spoken by a large Zabrak back on the _Riven._ The man had been speaking of Theron. Afterwards, on their stolen transport ship, the other freed slaves had praised and thanked Theron repeatedly for the assistance he’d provided them – and not just for the rescue, even though they had all likely realized that the only reason any of them had gotten free had been because Vector and Miranza had come for Theron. They’d said similar things: _He gave us hope. He kept our spirits up. He protected us._ Vector wasn’t surprised by any of those statements, and while none of the slaves had chosen to elaborate on what, exactly, Theron had done to help them, now that he had an inkling he could only assume it was more of the same. How many pieces of himself had Theron given away in order to protect these people he didn’t even know? How many other ‘competitions’ had he made himself the focus of in order to spare someone else the experience? How much suffering had he willingly brought on himself to keep the others safe? _Better me than her, right?_

And all of that, he’d done with a crazed Sith lord skulking about inside his head, knowing full well that he’d been sold to Darth Jadzira because Amrielle had _known_ she would be the best person to torment him in every way he feared the most. And she _had_.

“You really are extraordinary, love,” Vector said, pouring every ounce of conviction he felt into those words. Theron looked up at him, confused and slightly suspicious. “You’ve absolutely no idea how truly exceptional you are.”

“I’m not –” Theron began, but Vector cut him off, cupping his jaw and brushing his thumb over Theron’s mouth to silence him. He was careful to keep his touches light, applying no pressure or doing anything that might make Theron feel restrained, but stars, Vector needed for Theron to stop being so unkind to himself.

“Theron, please. You’ve survived, and because of you, others have survived as well.” Vector bent, placing a gentle kiss between Theron’s furrowed brows. “We know the path to recovery is slow and difficult, and we intend to be there for you every step of the way. But do not think for an instant that we believe you incapable of doing this on your own, because we know that you could. You just …” He paused to kiss Theron again. “You just don’t _need_ to.”

Theron stared up at him, brows still furrowed but his hazel eyes clearing a little. Vector could still read the confusion and disbelief on his face – and in his aura, muddying up the more vibrant hues that normally shone there – but something new was forming there, hope and affection and trust mingling together. Vector saw the emotions kindling in him and rejoiced, knowing this was a fire he could help spread.

“I’m afraid,” Theron whispered at last, and Vector nodded.

“Yes, love,” he agreed. He thought about what Theron had been through – the vast majority of the details still unknown to him – and about how hard he’d been struggling since they’d arrived on Odessen. He thought about Miranza, gone somewhere across the galaxy to serve a Sith lord who might only be a few steps above Darth Jadzira on the sanity tree. He was afraid, too.

“I don’t want you to think less of me.”

Not for the first time – and, Vector reflected with an internal sigh, likely not for the last time, either – Vector fought down the urge to find every single person in Theron’s life who had ever dismissed, abandoned or otherwise betrayed him and toss them all out an airlock. Satele Shan, at least, Vector understood; he didn’t agree with how she had chosen to handle her unwanted pregnancy, but he certainly acknowledged that she had the right not to keep a child she didn’t want. It would have been better for Theron had he been raised by loving adoptive parents, rather than by an elderly Jedi who had predetermined Theron’s path for him (and incorrectly so, at that), but Satele’s heart had been in the right place. Everyone else since then, however? A bloody pack of idiots, the lot of them, and Vector should very much like to throttle them all senseless.

“Theron.” Vector tugged his lover upright a little so that they could meet eye to eye, and when he clasped Theron’s hands a look of discomfort flashed across the other man’s face but he didn’t try to pull away. “Love, Darth Jadzira” – there was no mistaking Theron’s flinch, and Vector was sorry for it but he didn’t back down – “was your own personal hell. You could’ve collapsed to pieces –”

“I _did_ collapse to pieces,” Theron interrupted him, face and voice bitter, but Vector ignored him and pressed on.

“—But instead, love, _instead_ you chose to make your own hell worse so that others would suffer less.” Vector squeezed Theron’s hands. “I will never cease to be amazed and astounded and proud at what a remarkable man you are. If you fall apart now – if it takes you some time to come back together – we … _I_ will love you just the same and be here, by your side, for as long as it takes. And Miranza – when she comes back to us, because she _is_ coming back to us, love, she _is_ – will tell you the same bloody thing, over and over again, until you finally believe us.”

_Please believe us, Theron,_ Vector thought at the other man, giving his hands another squeeze. Theron’s gaze, so fearful and uncertain, drifted over his face, and Vector did his best to put all his encouragement and faith there for his lover to see. It would have been easier if he could draw Theron into his arms, but Vector suspected Theron wouldn’t appreciate that at the moment. Touch needed to be on Theron’s terms; even just Vector holding his hands was making him uncomfortable, but Vector was afraid of losing that point of contact between them and instead he made certain that Theron could draw away any time he needed to. That he _wasn’t_ pulling away in spite of his own discomfort was a tremendous relief to Vector.

“I don’t know what to do,” Theron finally admitted.

“You’re already doing it, love.” Vector smiled at him, masking how hard his heart broke for him over and over again. Some nights he was grateful that Theron wasn’t Force-sensitive and that he didn’t possess the aura-sight granted a Killik Joiner; it made it easier for Vector to hide how badly he hurt for him. Far better for Theron to have the illusion that Vector was strong and confident, and not completely torn up inside over what had happened to Theron and was still happening to Miranza.

“Come,” he said at last, easing back down onto the mattress and letting Theron choose to do the same beside him. To Vector’s great delight Theron did, curling up against Vector’s side, close enough to touch. “It’s early hours yet and our nightmare is over. Let’s see if we can’t catch a bit more sleep, yes?”

“Yes,” Theron agreed, draping his arm over Vector’s hip once more and pressing in close enough that they could share a pillow.

Vector was relieved that Theron took him so literally. He wasn’t entirely certain if, metaphorically speaking, their nightmare was over yet or not, but he hoped it would be soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Stripped" is by Depeche Mode.


	36. Fire In the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranza runs into some complications while pampering herself post-assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic violence and descriptions of gore.

_**Dromund Kaas, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Some nights Miranza was left with the impression that Darth Occlus never slept. Her offices, onto which her private rooms were built, were never closed no matter the hour, and whenever Miranza poked her head into the room the Sith lord would be behind her desk, sending a message on a datapad or working on something at her computer terminal. It was always thus when Miranza returned from an assignment: Darth Occlus would be waiting for her, would hear the details of Miranza’s successful mission, and then would either send Miranza on her way or would begin discussing the next task. Afterwards the Sith lord would dismiss her and go back to her work, and Miranza would leave the office door open for the next petitioner. And there was _always_ a next petitioner, no matter how late or early it was.

There was a comfort to the routine. After her upbringing at the facility, her years at the academy, and then her service in Imperial Intelligence, Miranza had grown to appreciate routines. Her life since leaving Intelligence had been lacking in that respect, although she wouldn’t complain about it.

Every so often Miranza would complete her debriefing and, instead of being dismissed, would be sent deeper into Darth Occlus’s offices. There was no schedule to this routine, and she didn’t know if it was because the Sith lord wished to keep Miranza on her toes or if she simply maintained her own private schedule to which Miranza was not privy. To a certain extent it was easier not knowing when her next procedure would take place, otherwise Miranza would come to dread it and the resulting anxiety might interfere with her work.

Fortunately this was not such a night. Miranza arrived at Darth Occlus’s office already tired and aching, ornate ceremonial box tucked under her arm and lurid bruises blossoming up under her matte-black uniform. She had managed to avoid limping from the shuttle to the office, but it was a close call; the knee she’d hurt years ago on Rishi was acting up and she had a host of new injuries to contend with. She had to mention these injuries in her report, and perhaps that was why her master chose to forgo putting Miranza through another procedure. Darth Occlus didn’t want to kill her, after all.

When Miranza mentioned her tumble down the elevator shaft her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but it was still gratifying to see the way Darth Occlus’s eyebrows rose high above her mask. Her master’s praise sounded genuine, and it had ceased troubling Miranza how much she soaked it up. She wanted Darth Occlus to commend her work or her skill. The alternative was … unpleasant.

Debriefing over and ceremonial box turned in – Miranza had no idea what the box contained, nor did she particularly care although there was a sticky miasma that settled over her whenever she touched it – Miranza left Darth Occlus’s offices and made her way towards the baths. It was much harder to disguise her limp now that she was done speaking with her master.

Stars, she was tired and everything hurt. The latter was chiefly her own fault for choosing to throw herself several stories down a narrow shaft, but the alternative had been far less appealing: staying on the same floor while the explosion she’d accidentally triggered turned her into so much crispy-fried paste. All things considered she much preferred feeling like she’d be trampled under a herd of icetrompers to … well, being very, _very_ dead. She still didn’t know what alarm or trap she’d tripped, but that didn’t much matter given that she’d still managed to steal Darth Occlus’s ornamental whatsit.

The baths were her reward. Miranza kept telling herself that.

Darth Occlus’s Dromund Kaas estate was massive, sprawling high up in the mountains overlooking the jungle. Her first few weeks there, Miranza had been almost constantly lost despite having trained from a young age to memorize her surroundings and the layouts of the buildings she was in. She’d been tempted to leave a trail of breadcrumbs save that there were beasts roaming the halls who would most likely just have gobbled the bread up and then come looking to make her a part of the snack. There were still entire wings she had never visited, but she knew the path from her master’s offices to the baths – and deeper, into the private suites where she had her own rooms – like the back of her own hand. It was a long walk but mercifully free from interruption or companionship. Darth Occlus seldom slept, so far as Miranza could tell, but the other denizens of her estate were not so active.

It was not a huge surprise to Miranza that Darth Occlus, a former slave risen to power thanks to her Force-sensitivity, would have a thing for luxuries of all sorts. The Miralukan woman favoured soft, expensive fabrics, decorated herself in gaudy jewelry that spoke more of cost than of taste, and indulged in all the fine food and drink she wanted. She had known poverty and deprivation for most of her life and had made the choice to overcompensate now that she had access to extravagant luxuries. What was somewhat surprising to Miranza was that the Sith lord chose to share those luxuries with those in her employ, and as such Miranza had her own suite of sumptuously-appointed rooms, an extensive wardrobe and access to as much food and drink as she could ever desire. Likewise, the baths were the sort of extravagance that Miranza had only enjoyed while undercover, but oh, they were _divine_.

Darth Occlus had her own private bathing chambers, of course, but for her soldiers – of which Miranza counted among the many – she had commissioned the sort of grand affair that would not have seem remiss in the home of an old-blood Sith family. There were several large, deep pools that could be used for swimming laps, if one so desired, and smaller pools of warm or cold water, depending on one’s fancies. There were bubbling tubs where one could recline alone or larger pools that could be shared. (Having had the misfortune of witnessing what occasionally _happened_ in those larger pools Miranza elected to avoid them. She preferred the biological matter in her baths to come in the form of scented herbs and essential oils, rather than … _well._ ) There was not much in the way of privacy, but Miranza was willing to sacrifice solitude for soaking away her various aches and pains in a heated, bubbling tub all to herself. And if she timed it right she could have the place to herself.

There were a pair of soldiers exiting the baths as Miranza made her way inside. They eyed her, but didn’t speak to her, intent on continuing their own conversation. For the most part Darth Occlus’s soldiers had little to do with her. They didn’t like her – in fact, some of them outright despised her – but as her assignments were best done solo they had little cause to interact with her. Once, very early into her tenure, one of the men had grabbed Miranza and tried to haul her away for some “alone time,” just to see what the uppity little bitch was made of. Miranza had broken his nose and sprained his wrist in less time than it had taken him to put his hands on her, and afterwards Darth Occlus had had him executed. Not because she was overly concerned about Miranza’s wellbeing, but because Miranza belonged to her and the soldier had dared to touch what was not his. The man’s execution had robbed Miranza of her own agency in the matter – she would have been fine with him walking around bearing the bruises she’d left on him – but had strengthened Darth Occlus’s control over the situation, which was what was important to the Sith lord. Miranza’s opinions on the subject were of little interest to her master. Since then the other soldiers had given her a wide berth, although they found little ways to show their dislike of her, ways that didn’t involve actually laying hands on Miranza and risking Darth Occlus’s ire.

Miranza told herself she didn’t care. She wasn’t there to make friends, just to repay a debt.

She ignored their whispered conversation as the two soldiers passed her and pretended she didn’t notice the sudden burst of laughter that was almost certainly at her expense. Instead, she headed towards the rear of the baths, making a beeline for her favourite tub, the one set in the corner where she could keep her eye on her surroundings while enjoying a good long soak.

Sometimes when the baths were particularly busy there would be attendants on hand to assist with undressing or redressing, or to offer out towels and robes, or prepare baths to a soldier’s liking. This late at night, however, Miranza had the place to herself, which suited her just fine. The “attendants” were slaves – despite Darth Occlus’s claims that she had no interest in buying and selling sentients, not everyone who served at her estate served freely – and Miranza was uncomfortable making use of their services. Besides that, she could undress herself just fine, thank you _very_ much, and she didn’t need anyone hovering over her, ready to attend to her every whim.

Miranza set her tub to filling, helping herself to a selection of fragrant oils to sweeten the water. She was careful to pick out scents that bore no resemblance to the soaps and shampoos she would normally use at home, and nothing that would remind her of Theron or Vector. Memories were so strongly connected to sense of smell that she didn’t want to go back home and have anything triggering reminders of her time here. Instead, she chose something floral, rather than the vanilla she would have preferred or the spicy-sweet honeyed scent that clung to Vector or the woodsy cologne Theron wore. It would have been a comfort to smell either of them again, but Miranza would forego comfort now if it meant avoiding triggers later on. She didn’t want any connections between her old life and her current one, no matter how desperately she missed her boys now.

As the tub filled with hot, flowery-scented water Miranza stripped out of her uniform, taking time to fold each individual item and set it on the nearby table reserved for that purpose even though she had no intentions of putting her soiled clothes back on. She had a robe to wear back to her rooms, and one of the servants would return her armour to her later, after it had been properly cleaned and maintained. She paused for a moment to inspect a tear along the seam of her armoured jacket and made a mental note to have someone repair it for her. Darth Occlus provided her with plenty of armour and her gear was all top of the line.

The lighting in the baths was deliberately low to provide a calm, intimate setting, but it was bright enough that Miranza could see the stark line of bruising all down her right flank from where she’d collided with the elevator cables. Her knee appeared to be swollen, too, making her suspect she had reaggravated the injury rather than that it was just acting up. The climate up in Darth Occlus’s mountain estate was colder than it would have been down in the jungle, but the air was just as damp and that combination of cold and wet did her old injury no favours (it wasn’t exactly kind to her new injuries, either). She might have to get one of her master’s medics to take a look; Darth Occlus would send her out into a fight regardless of the condition she was in, and the expectation was that Miranza would ensure she kept herself in fighting form. The Sith relied upon emotions to fuel their powers and as such Darth Occlus tended to push Miranza and the rest of her soldiers harder and further than a Moff would have done. Anger Miranza had in abundance – all she needed to do was to close her eyes and remember the sight of Theron, lost and adrift, huddling in Darth Occlus’s cloak on board the _Riven,_ or the betrayed expression on Vector’s face when he realized she wasn’t coming home with them – but her master made sure she had plenty of pain to work with as well. Miranza was not and would never be Force-sensitive no matter how much magic Darth Occlus poured into her with her Sith alchemy, but the Sith lord kept her fueled all the same.

Miranza climbed into the tub, water sloshing out over the sides as she lowered herself in. There were other tubs and pools that were much larger, but she found she was the perfect size to recline in the private tubs: she could stretch out fully with her bare toes pressing against the opposite end, keeping her propped up, and all she had to do to sink under the water was to relax her legs. The water was almost on the side of too hot and felt delicious against her sore, aching body, and for a moment she just lay there, back against the tub wall, letting the hot water and mineral oils do their job.

Stretching out, she draped her arms over the sides of the tub, grasping at the warm rock with her fingers and using her own weight to pull and drag the muscles of her arms. In the dim lighting the deep red patterns that traced up both arms stood out in sharp contrast to her pale skin, and she bent and turned, watching the way the marks twisted and flowed. There was a serpentine pattern to the markings that put her in mind of snakes and dragons; she always wanted to ask Darth Occlus whether or not the marks held some deeper meaning, if there was some connection between scales and snakes and Sith alchemy. She suspected her master wouldn’t tell her, however, and nothing she’d been able to read on her own had given her any indication of the truth. She was Force-blind; she wasn’t Sith; it wasn’t for her to know the deeper meaning behind the dark red patterns etched into her flesh. Even though the patterns _were_ etched into _her_ flesh. Here and now, Darth Occlus would say that Miranza’s flesh belonged to _her_ for so long as the contract remained between them.

The patterns covered most of her body now. Not her face or her chest or her upper back – that had been Miranza’s line that she refused to permit Darth Occlus to cross. The Sith lord owned her, she knew that, but she needed to be able to hide her master’s markings whenever possible. The tattoos were incredibly memorable, and the last thing a spy needed was to be memorable. At least they weren’t slave brands, like the one she bore on her hip; at least she wasn’t numbered or bearing a bar code. Darth Occlus’s tattoos had power behind them, not just ownership. Miranza didn’t know exactly what the markings meant, but she knew that they had something to do with Occlus’s Sith alchemy and that they were the reason Miranza was able to summon smoke to hide herself or call up weapons from the Void. They made her stronger, faster, tougher – not unlike the ways the Joining enhanced Vector, and she’d had about as much say in the changes wrought to her body as he’d had in what had been done to him.

_The things we do for love,_ Miranza thought, giving herself a little shake. At least she’d known what she was getting out of the arrangement: Theron, out of Darth Jadzira’s clutches. Darth Occlus could’ve turned her into a drooling vegetable or a slavering beast and she would have thought him well worth the bargain.

Once the heat had begun to seep into her bones and aching muscles Miranza started in on her bathing routine. Most of the savages in Darth Occlus’s employ couldn’t be bothered with more than a casual scrub-down with some soap and a coarse brush, but Miranza helped herself to an assortment of beauty products: lathering her hair with expensive shampoo, taking a loofah to her back and a pumice stone to her calloused feet, scrubbing exfoliant over her face. If she had to be enslaved then she would be a pampered, spoiled and above all else sweet-smelling slave.

It was bravado, nothing more, but there was no one there to call her on it.

Miranza held her breath and dunked her head under the water, enjoying the way her pale hair rippled around her face and shoulders, like silky little snakes. She had a distant memory, some fragment from her childhood, of learning to hold her breath, her trainers keeping track with stop-watches and her competing with the other children in the facility. Now there was no one timing her and instead she took delight in the silence under the surface, where the only thing she could hear was the sound of her heartbeats and the gentle gurgling of the bubbles around her.

A hand, heavy and armoured, came down over her face, shoving her head deeper under the water.

Startled, Miranza opened her mouth on a shout only to end up choking on water that tasted of flowers and essential oils.

Her first thought, as she scrabbled and clawed at the arm pinning her down, was that one of Darth Occlus’s soldiers had had enough of her and had decided to get rid of her. She hadn’t made any friends and it was really just a matter of time before someone else had a go at her. But then, as she clamped down on her panic and reason began reasserting itself, she was able to open her eyes under water and dimly make out the man leaning over her: Sith Pureblood, not one of Darth Occlus’s people, wearing the armour of another Sith lord.

Miranza closed her eyes and reached into the shadows around her. Had her eyes been open she would have seen the markings on her arms glowing, but she didn’t need to see it to know it was happening. Familiar hilts settled in the palms of her hands and she surged upwards, lashing out with her daggers.

The Pureblood flung himself backwards, crying out in pain as he clapped a hand over the slash she’d opened up along his arm. His armour was good; her daggers were better. Then she was flinging herself up and out of the tub, launching herself at him, blades at his throat. Hot blood spilled out over her hands and splashed across her face and he went limp just as an alarm began to sound.

Miranza sucked in cool lungfuls of air, savouring the burn that worked its way through her. The dark red patterns coiling around her flesh glowed faintly in the dim light of the baths and lit the fire inside her.

She spent a few hurried seconds donning her armour on over wet skin, then twisted her hair up into a knot on top of her head to keep the wet strands out of her face. So prepared, she summoned shadows around herself, savouring the burn along her arms, and rushed out of the baths on silent feet.

It was anybody’s guess who might be attacking them. Darth Occlus had a number of enemies – what Sith lord didn’t? – and her recent “acquisition” of Darth Jadzira’s assets had not gone over particularly well with many folks in Kaas City. Any of them could have decided to rid themselves of that pesky upstart slave once and for all. Plenty of powerful Sith had been displeased when Darth Marr had offered Occlus a seat on the Dark Council, and her having officially backed away from politics following his death on Zakuul had done little to appease those who believed an inferior alien such as her had no place holding such power. Darth Jadzira had merely been one of the loudest detractors; she hadn’t been the only one.

There was a temptation on Miranza’s part to simply secure herself a hiding spot and wait it all out. Nothing in her contract with Darth Occlus required her to come to the woman’s aid. If the Sith lord died in an attack on her compound that would put a quick and brutal end to Miranza’s servitude. Miranza didn’t owe Darth Occlus anything further. Who could blame her for not wanting to put herself in danger by involving herself in brutal Sith politics?

Miranza continued out into the hall, senses tuned for further attackers. She could have found a place to hide. Instead her feet propelled her towards the Sith lord’s offices, her hands gripping the hilts of her daggers so hard her knuckles were white and she was bound to have the imprint of the handles in her palms afterwards. She didn’t feel like questioning her own motivations too deeply. She didn’t know why she felt compelled to protect Darth Occlus, but she did.

A memory, fleeting and painful, of Darth Occlus helping Theron fasten the clasp of her own cloak around his shaking shoulders floated behind Miranza’s eyes. She dismissed it, shaking her head and slipping silently down the hall towards her master’s offices.

Somewhere close by she heard one of Darth Occlus’s kath-hounds let out a long, haunting howl, its fellows picking up the song. The noise caused gooseflesh to pimple over Miranza’s skin and made her shiver. Most of her master’s soldiers stayed well away from the altered beasts, wanting nothing to do with Darth Occlus’s alchemical creations, but Miranza usually wasn’t bothered by them. Their hunting cries _were_ eerie, however.

Miranza sensed the sudden rush of air before her other senses picked up on the shimmering form ahead of her. She ducked just as a vibroblade went sweeping where her head ought to have been, the shimmering coalescing into the figure of a large Pureblood in heavy armour. The man was tall, taller even than Barrazhat although not so broad in the shoulders, and his blade was like an extension of his arm as he swung it around in a graceful arc that would have taken her head off had not she not moved again. The vibroblade struck the wall behind her and he grunted at the impact, shifting on the balls of his feet to bring the sword around again. This time Miranza moved in instead of away, driving forward in a single fluid motion that brought both daggers up into the man’s midsection. She saw the shock on his face as her blades sank into his flesh, and when she yanked them back hot blood immediately began welling forth.

He swore at her in Sith, free hand coming up to try and close around her wrist. She twisted her hand away, flicking her dagger in time to catch his arm in a long, stinging strike that had him cursing again. Miranza leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding the next sweep of his vibroblade; it cut close enough that she felt the tip of it skim over her armour and she was grateful she had taken the time to re-don her gear following her bath.

Grabbing onto the fire and the smoke that clung to her like perfume Miranza dove forward again and vanished into shadows just as the Pureblood lunged towards her. She reappeared behind him, kicking one foot out to launch herself up onto his back, and when she landed her daggers sank in to the exposed flesh above the neckline of his armour. The man’s bellow of rage and pain was choked off when Miranza’s next slash tore through his throat. He toppled forward and she rode him to the ground, leaping off once she was certain he was dead.

She was fire, and it was _glorious._

Miranza wiped her daggers off on the dead man’s armour and waited until her breathing had steadied itself before continuing towards Darth Occlus’s offices.

She got perhaps another hundred feet before she came upon the body of one of Darth Occlus’s soldiers. The man was almost certainly dead, a huge cleft torn into his body from his neck down almost to the opposite hip, almost enough to cut him in two. She didn’t need to check his pulse; if he wasn’t dead already, he would be soon enough, and Miranza might be a decent enough field medic but there was little she could do to treat his injuries. The hallway smelled of blood, the coppery tang strong enough she could almost taste it. The klaxon sounded overhead, red lights flashing.

Another howl tore through the corridor, making the hair on the back of Miranza’s neck stand up. She hoped Darth Occlus’s kath-hounds were smart enough to tell friend from foe. She didn’t fancy fighting a battle on two fronts.

The soldier’s eyes flashed open and he let out a choked-off gasp, flecks of blood on his lips. The look he gave her was one of confusion rather than pain, as if he couldn’t understand why she should be towering over him as he lay crumpled against the wall. Then he grimaced as the pain caught up with him and Miranza knelt, hesitating. She couldn’t save him. He had to be in agony. She didn’t owe him anything – she didn’t owe _any_ of Darth Occlus’s soldiers anything – but he hadn’t been one of the bad ones and he didn’t deserve this. She raised her dagger and saw the moment understanding reached him, his eyes softening, his mouth opening in silent thanks.

Then his eyes flicked to the side, his attention caught, and Miranza turned in time to see another giant Pureblood figure appearing out of stealth behind her. He was already moving to attack, swinging a massive greataxe in a low, sweeping arc.

The axe caught Miranza in the midsection with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. She staggered backwards, daggers falling from numb hands to clatter noisily on the ground. The Pureblood yanked his axe back, or tried to: Miranza was tugged forward with it, and the man had to shove his boot into her stomach in order to pull the blade loose.

Blood splattered the ground, wet and dark. Miranza fell back, colliding with the wall behind her, both hands pressing against the gaping hole in her gut.

The Pureblood lifted his axe again, this time in an overhead strike. Miranza’s knees gave out, she couldn’t bring her hands up to block the blow. She couldn’t hear the sirens over the rush of blood in her ears.

Something lean and muscled leapt out of the shadows behind the Pureblood, massive jaws closing around the man’s throat. The kath-hound – the huge albino beast with the tri-horned head – bore the man to the ground, growling and snarling against his flesh. It was close enough that the Pureblood’s leg bumped against Miranza’s foot, the man’s blood splashing over her face and arms. When the kath-hound lifted it head its muzzle was red and dripping. If you squinted hard enough you could pretend the beast was just a normal kath-hound. Of course, if you squinted hard enough when looking at _her,_ you could pretend Miranza was just a normal human woman. In both instances you would be very much mistaken.

Miranza’s mouth opened and closed, no sounds coming out, not even her gasping breaths. Her hands pressed down hard against the wound in her belly, slick with hot blood – her blood. It didn’t hurt. It _should_ hurt, but all she could feel was cold, the fire leaving her, and the dull throbbing of her bad knee.

She couldn’t look down, couldn’t bring herself to look at the wound. It was bad, she knew that without needing to see. The smell – not just blood, but –

_“Shit,”_ Miranza hissed out. A hysterical giggle bubbled up in her throat at the accuracy of her statement. _Shit,_ indeed.

Keening, animalistic noises filled the corridor and it took Miranza an embarrassingly long time to realize the noises were coming from her. The pain was beginning to twist through her, something blazing and searing, the enormity of it enough to leave her sobbing. She could taste blood in her mouth. Her body was cold and on fire at the same time and she knew, with terrible conviction, that she should have just found a place to hide until the fighting was over.

The kath-hound lifted its massive head and began snuffling at her, its muzzle poking against the ruined flesh of her belly. She whimpered, as much at the pain as at the indignity of it all. Oh, _stars,_ she didn’t know whether she’d prefer to die from the horrific wounds in her gut or by being eaten alive by one of Darth Occlus’s monstrosities, but Miranza knew she _was_ going to die and it was just so colossally _unfair_ …

It hurt, _everything hurt,_ and Miranza could feel the fire inside her, twisting and coiling and growing until she couldn’t tell whether the fire was from Darth Occlus’s alchemy or from the pain or if it was all just the same thing. She tried to breathe but her breaths were coming in short, painful gasps that sounded more like hiccups. Her eyes were blurring, vision tunnelling, and that was okay because it meant she couldn’t see the kath-hound nuzzling at her or the terrible mess the axe had left behind or the bodies collapsed in the hallway around her.

Something soft and cool brushed against Miranza’s face and she startled, the sudden movement causing her pain to double and triple and quadruple until her entire world was focused around it, until there was nothing left but the pain and the conviction that this was the only thing she had ever known.

“You don’t get to escape our arrangement this easily, little Ghost.”

Fire, she was _fire,_ her _world_ was on fire, and all Miranza could do was scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fire In the Head" is by The Tea Party (the Canadian band, not the political movement), and yes, I've used this song before but damned if it doesn't fit here.
> 
> Feel free to post in the comments and/or find me on Tumblr to tell me about how I've ruined your day/weekend/life. I may be posting emergency cute stuff on my blog after this one. :P


	37. Running Up That Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vector handles the day-to-day affairs on Odessen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for discussion of underage sex and sexual slavery

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“With all due respect, Major, you’re being deliberately obtuse!”

The Imperial – a former Major in the Imperial Military, for all that he’d abandoned his ranks and titles just like everyone else on Odessen – let out an indignant snort, folding his arms across his chest. He had a rather large moustache that put Vector in mind of a fretful caterpillar, legs fluttering above the man’s thin upper lip. Beside him, her own arms folded across her chest, the former Balmorran schoolteacher opened her mouth to continue her diatribe.

Vector lifted a hand, not quite cutting her off, but Khatera’s mouth slammed shut nonetheless.

“Major Dalles, Mistress Suul, please,” Vector said, once he had both their attention. Khatera’s lips twitched, not quite quirking upwards in a smile, but Vector saw her tired amusement in her aura and knew that her previous comment, frustrated as it was, had been borrowed out of his own playbook. “With all due respect” was a diplomat’s line; it let the listener make their own assumptions about how much respect they were due, when in reality the speaker could be implying no respect whatsoever. Vector was reasonably confident he’d used that same line himself more than once since he’d begun mediating this ongoing conflict between Khatera Suul and Bey’wan Aygo’s various attaches. The head of the Alliance’s military operations was far too busy to be involved in this battle, and it seemed to Vector that each successive stand-in was less formidable than the last; they were wearing Aygo down, a fact that Major Dalles himself had to be aware of.

“Master Hyllus, please, try to help me make Mistress Suul understand,” Dalles said, his moustache fluttering dramatically. Although he was directing his speech to Vector, the major kept his gaze fixed on Khatera as if trying to will the teacher to understand. “It is not that we do not place importance upon the educational needs of the refugees and their children, it’s simply that we _do not_ have the space available to meet your demands.”

Khatera rolled her eyes, hands settling on her hips. She was an attractive woman some ten years Vector’s senior and one of the few civilians he knew who had made the choice to come to Odessen out of a genuine desire to serve and do good, rather than because she had nowhere else left to go. Khatera could have chosen to remain on Belsavis, working with Master Zarasa at their little school there; instead she had packed up herself and her teenage son and traveled to Odessen in order to establish a school for the refugees. Almost everyone who served the Alliance did so out of a desire to make the galaxy a better place, but Khatera wasn’t there to fight, she was there to educate – although, as Bey’wan Aygo and his attaches were quickly learning, she was perfectly _willing_ to fight, albeit in a far different arena than they were accustomed to.

“You’re acting as though I’m asking you to replace the hangar with classrooms, Major,” Khatera said. “I’m not. I’m asking for a bit of space off to one side or up over the deck. Nothing that would interfere with military operations.”

“And you’re acting as though that’s such a minor thing to ask,” Dalles countered, sounding exasperated. “The extra space we’ve been allotted has been given to us because we _need_ it, not because we wanted the monopoly on base resources!”

Vector rubbed a hand over the bridge of his nose, doing his level best to behave as though this wasn’t an argument he’d already heard time and time again. Lana Beniko handled the day-to-day management of the Odessen base, Theron handled intelligence-gathering and operations, and Master Caedan Savarr made the overall decisions, but that left a lot of little details to be managed by others. Lana didn’t have time to oversee every allotment of space, every division of equipment and resources, and as such Vector had stepped into the position of her aide de camp. While she made the major decisions – those that didn’t fall under Master Savarr’s purview, that is – Vector dealt with the nitty-gritty details, and as such arguments like Khatera’s and Bey’wan’s tended to land in his lap.

He understood the argument and could see it clearly from both sides. The Odessen base _was_ crowded – there was really only so much that could be done when carving a facility out of rock – and more people were flooding in every day. That was a _good_ thing, so far as Vector was concerned, but it did present certain logistical limitations. People needed places to sleep, places to eat and bathe and engage in recreational pursuits. The refugees who made up the bulk of their populace needed to be able to establish some small measure of normalcy in their lives; they had dropped everything to flee their homes and come to Odessen, and it was people like Khatera who were working to ensure that leaving their old lives behind did not have to result in them abandoning everything of who they were and who they wanted to become. As such, Vector could wholly endorse the classroom Khatera was trying to establish for the refugee children; it was important that their educations continue, so that when the war with Emperor Arcann was over those children could go on to lead productive, meaningful lives. The problem was, however, there were limitations on space, and the location of Khatera Suul’s classroom remained a constant source of heated debate.

On the nice days – and mercifully Odessen did have a great many of those – the children could sit outside, although forays into the wilderness outside the base called for added security (the last thing anyone wanted was for a random shade stalker to disappear into the woods with a stolen child). On cold or rainy or snowy days, however, or days when the wildlife was being uncooperative, the classroom needed to be moved indoors. The cantina was out of the question, obviously; there was never a time of day when it wasn’t fairly busy, and children needed more peace and quiet if they were going to get any learning done. Certain areas of Doctor Oggurobb’s scientific wing were suitable – when the good Doctor and his people weren’t doing any live experimentation – but the Hutt wasn’t exactly the sort of person most parents wanted their children around; he was affable enough, but his morals were questionable and while Khatera was tactful enough not to say it Vector knew some of the parents were convinced Oggurobb would try to experiment on their children. (Doctor Oggurobb might, too, if he thought he could get away with it, or if he thought the results would be of sufficient benefit to the Alliance.) And if Doctor Oggurobb’s people were considered questionable, then Hylo Visz’s ‘Underworld Logistics’ were definitely out of the question – you couldn’t run a classroom in the middle of a smuggling operation, no matter how friendly some of the smugglers happened to be. Sana-Rae’s Force Enclave might have been more suitable for the children, but the children – rowdy, excitable and often incredibly fidgety and restless – were hardly suitable for the Force-sensitives in training. Khatera’s classroom had lasted all of a week in the Enclave before Sana-Rae was begging her to find new quarters.

The fact of the matter was, Military Operations had the most available space and they weren’t even using all of it. (As Khatera was quick to point out.) The original plan had been for the Alliance to store the bulk of its ships and equipment in the hangar (hence the sheer size of it), but that had proven unwieldy and now there were landing pads all over the base. The troops didn’t train in Operations; although considerable effort was put into integrating Republic, Imperial and Zakuulan soldiers, for the most part the groups preferred to remain separate as much as possible, and training happened elsewhere. There was an awful lot of space set aside for Military Operations and Khatera wasn’t wrong when she said it could be better utilized. The problem was, of course, that no one wanted to give up what they had in case they might need it later, and so while Bey’wan and his men were fully supportive of the refugees’ needs, they weren’t willing to just let Khatera and the refugees have valuable real estate that they might require later on.

“It’s not just about the space itself,” Major Dalles continued, gesturing around the hangar to make his point. “Children require some measure of peace and quiet in order to learn, do they not? You won’t find that here – there’s simply too much going on at all times. Our activities here would be a constant distraction.”

For once one of Bey’wan’s attaches wasn’t saying no for the sake of saying no: this was a valid point, and Khatera nodded slowly, conceding it. Dalles looked sympathetic rather than triumphant, and he shrugged his shoulders awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable at having apparently – for the time being, at least – won the argument.

“Perhaps …” The major turned, facing the wall opposite the entrance, a thoughtful look on his face. “If we had the right materials and the extra manpower” – he looked to Vector for that, and Vector nodded, motioning for him to continue – “we could build upwards, make another platform _over_ the speeders, that we could close off to give the students some privacy? There’s not a lot of room there, but it might be feasible to build a classroom for ten to fifteen students.”

“We’ve already got close to thirty,” Khatera replied, but she was tapping a fingernail against her bottom lip, matching the major’s thoughtful look with one of her own. “And likely to be _more_ than thirty, with more refugees coming in every day. But a classroom for fifteen would be a start. A _good_ start.”

The major smiled, his thoughtful expression shifting to one of relief. “You’re already needing to teach the children in shifts, yes? On account of the disparities in educational levels?”

Khatera nodded. “Yes. We lump them in together as much as possible, but we’ve got some students preparing for university, while others have never even seen the inside of a classroom.”

“Then it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to limit class sizes based on available room space, and allow that to dictate the number of shifts?” Dalles smoothed the tips of his fingers over the edges of his moustache, putting a temporary halt on its constant agitated fluttering. “If you could prepare for me an itemized list of what your classroom would require, Mistress Suul, I might be able to find an architect and some engineers to put it all together.”

“Thank you, Major Dalles, that would be wonderful.”

There was a bit more back and forth after that, but Vector found himself largely tuning the discussion out now that his skills as a mediator were no longer necessary. In truth he felt the two of them could have come to this accord without his presence – and it would have saved Bey’wan a significant amount of time and bother if he’d sent Major Dalles first, instead of the previous attaches who had met with Khatera – but perhaps having him there made them feel that Alliance command had an active interest in these affairs. Which Alliance command _did_ have an interest, but in the grand scheme of things Vector knew that Lana and Master Savarr were far more concerned about when and where Emperor Arcann would attack next than they were in the educational needs of the Alliance’s refugees. It wasn’t that the refugee families weren’t important, it was that if Arcann and the Eternal Empire tore the galaxy apart then it wouldn’t much matter whether or not a group of children knew their letters and numbers.

As things went, though, Vector far preferred dealing with the minutiae of the Alliance’s affairs than the sorts of life-or-death missions that Lana, Master Savarr and Theron handled on a daily basis. The little things – where Khatera’s school was going to be established, how many more bunks they were going to need in the singles’ barracks, whether or not Hylo’s people would be able to get in more nerf meat or if they would need to start sourcing another supplier – were necessary to the proper running of the base, but they were the sorts of things that bogged down Alliance command. Lana didn’t need to know that the cost of kolto supplies had gone up .003 percent in the last month because of a blockade over Manaan; she just needed to know that Vector could get her the kolto they needed when their people came back injured. Master Savarr didn’t need to be informed about the near-riot in the Force Enclave because two Sith had rival masters; he just needed to know that those two Sith were still willing to work together to protect the base. And Theron didn’t need to know that fuel coming in from Abafar was marginally cheaper than what you could get on Malastare, so long as his shuttle was still able to fly him from one clandestine meeting to the next. Vector could balance all these different needs and concerns, freeing up the others to focus on the major life-or-death assignments. It kept Vector busy – and stars, he _needed_ to be busy, because without all of this his mind would be free to wander and to worry, and that did no one any good.

“Vector, do you have a moment?”

The warm hand on his arm called Vector away from his thoughts, and he smiled absently at Khatera, suspecting she had been trying to draw his attention for a few seconds now.

“Yes, of course, Khatera.” In the weeks since Khatera’s arrival the two of them had dropped any formality between them, save when they were interacting with others. Vector had been fond of the woman during their brief interactions on Belsavis, but since she’d come to Odessen Khatera had become one of his closest friends, in part because she wasn’t intimately involved with command, but also in part because of their interactions on the Republic prison planet. Vector knew she wasn’t privy to all of the details about what had befallen himself, Theron and Miranza on Belsavis, but Khatera had been there for their recoveries. She had some idea of what they had been through, and what they had been like on Belsavis – and how they were different now.

Vector looked around, realizing that Major Dalles had taken his leave. Khatera continued smiling up at him, but Vector saw the faint lines of worry around her eyes and mouth, and knew that worry was for him.

“What is it?” he asked, trying to pretend he hadn’t been absentmindedly staring off into space while she’d been trying to catch his attention.

“Well …” Khatera licked her lips, her worried expression deepening. “It’s about Theron.”

Vector frowned, then immediately sought to deflect. He wasn’t interested in discussing his partner when Theron wasn’t around - Theron could and would speak for himself - but he could think of a few things about Theron – or centred around Theron – that Khatera might wish to bring up. Wiping the frown away, he tried for an affable smile. “If you’re concerned that Naite’s been pestering him, it’s fine. Your latest talk seems to have quelled the flames of infatuation - at least somewhat and for the time being.”

Naite, Khatera’s teenage son, seemed to have developed something of a crush on Theron. It was perfectly harmless – and perfectly understandable, so far as Vector was concerned. Theron was good-looking and charming when he wanted to be, and unfortunately for Naite there weren’t that many young men his own age on Odessen. And so far as Vector had been able to discern, none of the more age-appropriate men shared Naite’s predilections, whereas Theron was _obviously_ interested in other men. The fact that it was obvious because Theron was in a _relationship_ with another man didn’t seem to deter Naite in the least, and the boy had taken to pining in various locations throughout the base where he might happen to cross Theron’s path. Theron, for his part, was mostly just baffled and amused – mostly baffled.

 _“You didn’t have crushes on older men when you were Naite’s age?”_ Vector had asked him, late at night when they were lying in bed together.

 _“No.”_ Theron’s laugh had been short and sharp, with very little humour in it. _“I_ slept _with older men when I was Naite’s age. I don’t think I’m someone he should be modelling his life decisions after.”_

And that – the reminder that as a teenager Theron had been alone in the galaxy and left to the unscrupulous and less-than-tender mercies of adults who seldom had his best wishes at heart – had put an end to _that_ discussion. It was one thing to reminisce about the boyhood crushes Vector had had growing up, where he’d had the benefit of responsible caregivers and educators who weren’t interested in taking advantage of him – where he’d been permitted to _be_ a child and _have_ childhood crushes without it resulting in his innocence being stripped away – and quite another to recall that Theron had had no such buffers growing up. Naite was sheltered and loved, much as Vector had been at that age; Theron had been on his own since he was thirteen. Theron had never needed to spell out what _that_ had meant.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Khatera said, looking embarrassed. “Naite’s a good kid, but I don’t _ever_ want to have that conversation with him again. Because it wasn’t awkward enough to realize that I didn’t need to explain the birds and the bees to him, just the bees and the … bees … but no, _he_ had to decide he was head over heels in love with a married man twice his age.” She shook her head, a faint blush spreading across her dark cheeks. “Kid’s got good taste, though, I’ll give him that.”

She winked at Vector, their quiet laughter taking some of the awkwardness out of the conversation. After a few minutes of silence, however, she shook her head.

“It wasn’t Naite I wanted to talk to you about, though,” she said, jamming one hand in the pocket of her jacket while the other brushed over her dark, curly hair. She looked away from Vector, out at a line of soldiers performing drills, and sighed heavily. Vector braced himself for more worried questions about Theron’s wellbeing, preparing to deflect Khatera’s concerns just as he had deflected Lana’s and Senya’s and Koth’s. Then Khatera looked at him and said, “It’s about Sivalee.”

“Sivalee?” Vector repeated, frowning. “We don’t believe we know that name.”

“She’s one of my students,” Khatera replied, voice heavy. “A Twi’lek girl, come in from Hutt space.”

Vector tried to place her but failed; there had simply been too many refugees and volunteers over the last little while, and although he did his best to get to know everyone he had few interactions with the children or their families. He had a good memory for names and faces, but apparently even _his_ diplomatic skills failed him from time to time, and it was simply impossible to keep track of everyone on Odessen.

“Ah,” Vector said softly. “Let us guess – another crush on the dashing head of Operations?”

Khatera shook her head, expression closed off. “No.” She sounded angry. “Nothing like that.”

She fell silent, the hand in her pocket tugging her jacket away from her body, twisting the fabric around her. A muscle twitched in her jaw and Vector saw that the faint blush that had spread across her cheeks while discussing her son’s crush had increased, but that it had taken on an angrier hue.

“Sivalee was a slave,” she said, staring out at the soldiers marching in formation. “On a Hutt pleasure barge.”

“Ah,” Vector said again. Then the name tugged at something in his memory and he was suddenly able to picture the girl in question: small, pink-skinned, a brand over one cheek but too young for the traditional tattoos that marked a Twi’lek’s coming of age. And then it hit him: _too young for tattoos_ , and when he spoke his voice was flat and empty: “She can’t be more than ten. Tell us … she wasn’t used for _that_.”

“She’s fourteen,” Khatera corrected him. “She’s just small for her age. Malnourished. And yes, that’s precisely what she was used for. She’s too young, of course, but there’s always a market for underaged girls.”

 _And boys._ There was no need to say it out loud. There were always monsters in the galaxy who wanted to possess and hurt other people, a fact that seemed to keep coming up over and over again in Vector’s life. Vector let his shoulders droop, his chin resting on his chest. His hands curled into fists at his sides and he longed to punch something, or to pick up his electrostaff and leave a swath of destruction in his wake, but instead he forced himself to draw in a series of slow, measured breaths. Whatever had happened to her, Sivalee was here on Odessen now. She was no longer a pleasure slave in Hutt space, she was free, and with someone like Khatera to watch over her she would be safe. But Vector failed to see what Sivalee had to do with Theron, and he said so to Khatera, who grimaced.

“Yeah, that’s why I wanted to talk to you first, to see what you thought,” Khatera said slowly, as though hedging her words. She turned and leaned her hip against the railing behind her, her back to the hangar and the soldiers marching in neat little lines. “We’re kind of … lacking in qualified counsellors here on Odessen. Which – honestly – we should rectify that as soon as possible. We’ve got a lot of people here with a lot of different kinds of trauma, and proper therapists would make a world of difference.”

“Theron isn’t a therapist,” Vector said, unable to keep the confusion from his voice.

“No, but he’s …” Khatera let out an explosive sigh. “He’s got experience with that kind of trauma, though, doesn’t he?” Vector was silent, unwilling to confirm or deny her suspicions. It was up to Theron to decide how much of himself he felt like sharing. The teacher nodded, as though Vector’s silence was all the confirmation she needed, and plowed on, “The thing is … Sivalee just sees herself as damaged goods. Damaged goods that no one is going to want to have anything to do with. But she’s seen you and Theron together, and I just thought … if he felt like sharing, like _talking_ with her, maybe she could see that it’s possible to _be_ damaged and still be worthy of love.”

“Let us test our understanding.” Vector gripped the railing, fingers curling around the cold metal. “You believe that if Theron were to open up to her about his own … alleged … trauma, that this would help Sivalee to feel better about her experiences?”

“Well, when you say it like that …” Khatera made a face, scowling down at the ground. “It’s just … He’s functional, you know? He’s doing well. You’re obviously madly in love, and –”

“Please, stop.” He held up his hand, cutting her off in mid-sentence, and forced himself to meet her eyes. “It isn’t for us to say whether or not this would be something Theron is comfortable with. We do not know. We do know he’s not a therapist and this may be far outside his comfort zone.” _And if we ask him, he will agree to this whether or not he’s comfortable, because it involves a child and he’s not the sort to let a child suffer, even if it hurts him._ Especially _if it hurts him._ Vector sighed. “We will discuss the matter with Theron, but we are not certain it’s a good idea. It has to be up to him to decide, however.”

Khatera nodded emphatically. “Of course, of course. Thank you, Vector.”

 _Don’t thank us for this,_ Vector thought, closing his eyes to avoid looking at her face. When he opened them again she had looked away, and he sighed again. “We will … get back to you on this.”

Before Khatera could say anything further Vector pushed away from the railing and hurried out of the hangar, away from her and her not entirely unreasonable request.

No, it wasn’t _unreasonable,_ it was just … Vector knew his lover very well, and Theron could put a good face on this. He could talk to Sivalee and make her feel like she wasn’t damaged goods, or like the damage wasn’t all that bad. He could do it; he _would_ do it, if Vector asked him to. He could lay out his own trauma – which was still raw and painful to him – and tell himself that it was nothing near as bad as what Sivalee had experienced, and that at least he’d gone to Darth Jadzira as an adult and had come out of it with people who loved him. Theron could put on an amazing front, enough so that very few people on Odessen realized how dark and terrifying his nights were, how there were days on end where he couldn’t sleep, how he struggled to leave the confines of his own private room and face the Alliance that needed him. Few people actually knew how bad things were with Theron – Vector knew, of course, and Lana, and Koth and Senya to a lesser extent – but the idea of him laying all of that out for Sivalee made Vector feel physically ill.

The idea that Sivalee might understand it made him feel even worse.

Fortunately for Vector’s frayed nerves this was a problem that could wait – would _have_ to wait, in fact, as Theron was not presently on Odessen in the first place. He and the Outlander had taken Master Savarr’s spaceship to Zakuul where Theron planned to introduce the Jedi to Kaliyo Djannis, who was currently operating as an anarchist known as Firebrand. Theron had been nervous about the trip for some time, although Vector had been unable to determine whether his anxiety came from spending so much time alone with Master Savarr or if it had anything to do with the contact Theron was meeting while at the Spire. Theron wouldn’t talk about it before he left, saying only that they could discuss it when he got back, and Vector had let him go without pressuring him to share what was troubling him. For all Vector knew, Theron was nervous about meeting up with Kaliyo; it would be just like the Rattataki woman to blame Theron for Miranza’s absence - and Theron already blamed himself for that.

Vector tried very hard to make things as uncomplicated as possible for Theron. Indeed, a significant amount of the work Vector did on Odessen contributed towards simplifying matters for the various heads of Alliance command, operating behind the scenes to ensure that the Alliance ran smoothly. Theron had enough on his plate; the work he did as head of Operations kept him busy and kept his mind occupied, leaving him very little time to obsess over what had happened to him on the _Riven_ or to worry about Miranza’s tenure under Darth Occlus. Vector hated the idea of contributing towards the burden that the other man was already shouldering.

In Theron’s absence, however, Vector could at least focus on another aspect of what Khatera Suul had brought up. She was right to be concerned about the sheer number of people arriving on Odessen who were in need of more than just a safe place to stay. The Alliance had medical staff, of course, but the majority of those doctors, nurses and medics focused on healing the physical rather than the mental. Between the influx of refugees – people whose homes, livelihoods and even lives had been destroyed by the fighting with the Eternal Empire – and the soldiers battling every day against Zakuul’s forces, it made sense to try and bring in some professionals who could focus on the mind. Specialists who understood trauma and PTSD and the various other mental illnesses and afflictions common to a refuge like Odessen.

Bolstered by this new charge, Vector made his way back to his private quarters, already thinking of the connections and allies he could call upon in order to locate suitable candidates. Theron wasn’t the only person at the Odessen base in need of counselling; this was yet one more thing Vector could do to ensure the Alliance – and its various commanders – ran smoothly.

And if it gave Vector something to think about beyond worrying about his lovers, well ... so much the better, perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Running Up That Hill" is by Kate Bush, although I'm a fan of the Placebo cover (which I didn’t realize _was_ a cover until fairly recently).
> 
> Various elements of this chapter - Khatera setting up her school, Vector working behind the scenes to get things done on Odessen, Naite’s crush on Theron - kept tugging at me, but ultimately I’m a little disappointed in what feels like something of a "filler" chapter. I've massaged it as much as I can, but at the end of the day it was either post it or delete it, and there was enough in it that I liked that it seemed a waste to just delete it all and move on to something else.


	38. Blurred Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron meets with a contact on Zakuul, Caedan learns something he doesn't like, and Theron discovers it's possible for him to hate himself even more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warning for an as-yet-unposted part of _Past Imperfect._
> 
>  **Trigger Warning:** This chapter contains an explicit scene of sexual assault. Content in this chapter should be considered potentially triggering and reader discretion is strongly advised. For more spoiler-intensive warnings, please see the end notes.

_**Breaktown, Zakuul, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

After everything he had been through in his life, one would have expected that the sensation of being in over his head would be a familiar one to Theron, or that he would have recognized the signs of danger _before_ the danger happened. One would have thought that he would know when to back down, when to walk away.

Apparently, one would have been mistaken.

The lights and sirens and warning bells had been going off pretty much ever since Theron had left the Outlander alone with Kaliyo Djannis in order to meet up with his own contact in Breaktown. Initially, perhaps, he had blamed the high alert on the fact that Kaliyo was almost certainly going to eat poor Caedan Savarr alive, and that seemed like an _awful_ thing to do to a man who had just spent the last five years in carbonite. But Caedan and Kaliyo had recognized each other – something to do with a mutual acquaintance – and at least Theron was reasonably confident things weren’t going to end with Caedan and Kaliyo tumbling into bed together. Caedan wasn’t Kaliyo’s type – too smart, for one thing; too good, for another – and given that Theron was pretty sure Caedan was gay, it was a safe bet the Jedi wasn’t about to succumb to the Rattataki’s advances. Still, leaving Caedan to Kaliyo’s tender mercies was probably a dick move on Theron’s part, but they all had work to do, and Theron had only accompanied Caedan to Breaktown to introduce the Jedi and the anarchist; he wasn’t there to babysit all of their interactions.

Introductions over, Theron had other places to go and other people to see.

Truth be told, the warning bells had probably started going off when Kaliyo had mentioned meeting up with an old “friend” of Theron’s, and the way she’d said _friend_ had been what set the alarms off.

 _“I planned on tying him up in a big red bow and dumping him naked on Agent’s doorstep as a Life Day present,”_ Kaliyo had said, smirking around a bottle of beer, _“but whaddya know, Agent’s nowhere to be found. I guess you’ll do.”_

Theron had been expecting quite a few more digs against him over Miranza’s absence. He didn’t know what Vector had told the Rattataki, how he’d explained his wife’s disappearance, but for whatever reason Kaliyo didn’t seem inclined to prod. (More warning bells, right there: Kaliyo Djannis, _not_ jabbing at an open wound.) She’d brought up the subject of Miranza’s absence and then dropped it, just like that.

And now Theron was sitting in a sleazy cantina in Breaktown, sharing a bottle of cheap whiskey with none other than Ryshan _fucking_ Esselby, and those warning bells were going off all over the place.

Rysh looked good, of course. The years since going their separate ways after Planet Bumblefucknowhere had been kind to him – unfairly so, in Theron’s opinion, given that his ex-lover had sold him, Vector and Miranza out, kidnapped Miranza, and had nearly gotten them all killed in the process. He’d survived, of course, in the same way that all vermin like him survived: scurrying away and hiding until the worst of the damage was over. Theron had known Ryshan had survived, but he honestly hadn’t expected to ever see the man again, much less to see him on Zakuul.

Not only was Rysh very much _not_ dead, he was apparently thriving, running a healthy smuggling operation between Zakuul and Republic space. In the course of running that business he had chanced upon some valuable intel, the kind of “too good to be true” intel that Theron would’ve considered suspect, especially arriving now, exactly when the Alliance needed it. But that was why Theron was the only one dealing with Ryshan: because the intel _was_ too good to be true and the Alliance _did,_ in fact, need it, and sorting out the fact from the fiction was pretty much Theron’s job description these days.

Somehow, some way Ryshan had managed to get his hands on Star Fortress schematics, the _exact_ kind of engineering designs that Theron had been looking for for months since the first Zakuulan Star Fortress had sprung up over Republic space. The smuggler wanted credits for the schematics, of course, but Theron got the distinct impression that providing this intel served as some sort of peace offering from Ryshan. As profitable as the Eternal Empire was – or, more specifically, as profitable as their _blockades_ were, to a smuggler like Ryshan Esselby – the pilot was no more interested in living under Zakuulan rule than Theron was. The schematics, so far as Theron could tell, were the real deal, and Rysh’s price was actually pretty reasonable, once they’d haggled for a bit.

The haggling was done, the schematics were tucked away in a pocket inside Theron’s jacket, and now all that was left to do was sit in a sleazy Breaktown cantina and drink. Kaliyo’s plans – whatever they were; Theron didn’t need or want to know, and frankly, plausible deniability would probably come in handy when all was said and done – would take a day or so to play out and Theron was Caedan’s ride back to Odessen, so Theron had nothing but free time on his hands. A drink or two couldn’t hurt, and Ryshan was the one footing the bill. Rysh had always been generous when it came to cheap cantina booze. (Probably because cheap cantina booze led to cheap cantina flings, and Ryshan was nothing if not pragmatic when it came to getting himself laid.) Ryshan was generous and he made for good company when he wanted to. (Even if he was an asshole.)

The thing was, Ryshan was _easy._ Ryshan had always _been_ easy, and not just in the promiscuous sense (although yes, he was _that_ too, as Theron had good cause to know). He was far too self-absorbed to ask how Theron had been doing all these years, and he certainly wasn’t going to pick up on any incongruencies in Theron’s behaviour between then and now. It wasn’t that Ryshan wasn’t observant, but rather that he simply didn’t give a shit if Theron had issues, if the years hadn’t been kind, if life was _hard._ Rysh just wanted to sit and drink and reminisce about the good ol’ days. He also wanted to get Theron into bed again, but had backed off – a bit – when Theron had said he wasn’t interested. Rysh had made a few jokes about Theron succumbing to commitment and giving up the bachelor life, and Theron was content to let the smuggler think that’s all it was, because it was so much easier than explaining the truth.

Ryshan was far too self-centred to notice the anxiety that clung to Theron like a dark cloud: the way sudden, loud noises made him startle or how he made sure to put his back to the wall so that he had a view of the whole cantina and nothing and no one could sneak up behind him. Rysh noticed what he wanted to notice, and the suggestion that Theron might be struggling with something _unpleasant_ wouldn’t have interested him in the slightest.

Honestly, it was kind of nice drinking with Ryshan and knowing that the other man wasn’t going to ask Theron any awkward questions. He wasn’t going to try to get Theron to talk or to confide in him. Rysh didn’t give a shit if Theron was messed up. The pilot didn’t want to pretend to care, didn’t want to go to the effort of feigning sympathy. He would far rather ignore whatever was going on in Theron’s head in favour of simply sitting and drinking and flirting, just like old times.

It would have been nicer if it hadn’t been for that whole awkward _kidnapping Theron’s lover and nearly getting them all killed on some backwater planet_ thing, but gosh, you couldn’t have everything, could you?

Theron had lost count of how many bottles he and Ryshan had split between them. The pilot had always been good at holding his alcohol, and now he seemed barely even lightly buzzed while Theron was definitely starting to feel the effects. It felt good, though, and Theron was in no hurry to stop or slow down, especially when he didn’t have Vector or Miranza around to make him feel guilty about over-indulging. It was nice not to feel the weight on him for a while: to not have to think about anything that had happened, to not be in charge of anything, to not have to pretend that his mind wasn’t a tangled bag of hissing mankas all the fucking time. He could still stagger back to the _Vigilant,_ Caedan’s ship, to sleep it off. Right now he was enjoying the companionship, even if the companion in question was kind of an asshole.

The other nice thing about Ryshan – aside from the fact that he really _was_ ridiculously hot, with a body he knew _just_ what to do with – was that it was next to impossible to offend him. The two of them had been sitting together, drinking amicably and discussing past dalliances when Rysh had leaned in and kissed Theron on the lips. Theron had laughed it off, pushing Rysh back and reminding the pilot that he wasn’t here for that sort of thing, and Ryshan had just laughed in turn and they’d gone back to drinking. No offense intended, none taken. _Easy._

Rysh’s hand on Theron’s thigh was warm and tender, and it had taken Theron an embarrassingly long time to remember that he wasn’t interested in him. He’d brushed the hand away, and then he and Rysh had laughed again, and when the hand returned to Theron’s thigh a few minutes later it seemed like too much bother to worry about so Theron just left it there. It was warm and there was no pressure attached, even if something in the back of Theron’s mind felt uneasy about it. When Theron decided he’d had enough to drink – more specifically, when he realized he’d gone well past the line of “enough” and had wandered into “completely sloshed” territory, and it was weird because he really hadn’t intended to drink _that_ much – he’d announced his intentions to head out, but instead of meandering back to the Outlander’s ship he found himself drifting amicably alongside Ryshan, arms slung over each other’s shoulders as they stumbled out of the cantina and back to Rysh’s motel room. Not because Theron had any intentions of screwing around with Rysh (because he _didn’t_ and Rysh _got that_ ), but simply because he was tired and Ryshan’s room was closer than Caedan’s ship. Theron was drunk, Ryshan was friendly, and Caedan’s ship was _far_ away. Like, so, _so_ far.

Theron remembered saying _no_ when Ryshan kissed him outside the motel room. He remembered saying _no_ again when Rysh pushed him up against the door inside his suite. Everything else was lost in that delightful drunken blur that took the edge off of Theron’s worries and nightmares, and when his legs bumped up against Ryshan’s bed Theron sat down with a sudden thump, feeling the room spinning around him, and then Rysh was kissing him again and pushing him down over the mattress.

It felt … good. Rysh was a good kisser. A phenomenal kisser. It was just that … Theron had said _no._ No, he didn’t want this. _Stop._

“Kriff, you’re such a cocktease,” Ryshan grumbled, when Theron tried to push him off for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. His hand was on Theron’s thigh again, higher this time, insistent fingers rubbing over the crotch of Theron’s pants. “You know I love it when you fight back.”

Theron opened his mouth to tell Ryshan he’s not being a tease, that he truly doesn’t want this, but Rysh silenced him with a kiss, forceful enough that Theron toppled backwards onto the bed with a surprised and breathless little laugh. Because he’s drunk – completely kriffing hammered, if Theron’s being honest with himself – and because it’s Ryshan, and Rysh has never been a threat to Theron before.

At least, not in a way that Theron didn’t want.

Clever fingers unfasten the buttons on Theron’s trousers, Ryshan’s other hand cupping his crotch through the fabric, palming him. In all honesty Theron would’ve expected whiskey-dick to interfere – how much had he had to drink, anyway? the room wouldn’t stop _spinning_ – but he found his treacherous cock responding to Ryshan’s familiar touch, and Rysh had always been a selfish asshole but the fact was the man knew his way around Theron’s body. Theron was hard under Ryshan’s experienced hand and the pilot let out a pleased sound as his other hand made short work of Theron’s pants.

“No,” Theron said again, loudly, trying to catch at Rysh’s wrist, but even as his fingers closed around the other man’s arm Ryshan’s free hand found its way inside his trousers. He gasped, feeling the room spin a little more, and said _no_ again. He’d lost track of how many times he’d said it, and it felt like the word was starting to lose all meaning, especially in the face of Ryshan’s persistence.

“Oh, come on, Theron,” Ryshan muttered, stroking Theron to hardness (and that was far, far easier than it ought to have been, what with all the alcohol and the fact that Theron _did not want this_ ), “We both know why you came back to my room.”

“I didn’t,” Theron protested, but Ryshan’s hand on his cock sent his thoughts scattering, and as the pilot made reassuring noises against Theron’s throat he found himself struggling to remember. He hadn’t, had he? He hadn’t decided to come back to Ryshan’s room so they could fuck. He wasn’t interested in fucking Ryshan – he’d said that already, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he said no?

“No,” Theron tried again, “I don’t want –” but Ryshan kissed him again, long and slow and deep, his tongue sliding between Theron’s lips. Rysh tasted like whiskey, and it was a familiar taste: a familiar taste to go with a familiar sensation. He must have said yes, at some point. He couldn’t remember saying yes, but obviously …

“That’s good,” Rysh murmured against Theron’s lips, stroking him harder and faster. “You’re so good.” Theron’s hips jerked, an involuntary motion that pressed his cock into Ryshan’s palm and earned him a pleased hum from the pilot. “I knew you were just playing around. C’mon, I just wanna make you feel good, baby. I’ll be so good to you, you know I will. You know you want it.”

Shaking his head, Theron tried to disentangle himself from Ryshan but his limbs didn’t seem to want to cooperate. He was tired, _so tired,_ and Ryshan’s hand between his legs felt good, the weight of him pressing Theron against the mattress familiar and not at all alarming. Theron blinked, eyelids feeling impossibly heavy, and he realized with a start that at some point Rysh had lost his jacket and shirt, and that Theron’s pants and underwear were down around his ankles. He had no memory of Ryshan backing off long enough to strip out of his clothing, nor of the pilot tugging his pants down. It felt like only seconds had passed but Theron was aware that it must have taken much more time than that, and it should have bothered him more that he couldn’t remember.

Theron was loose and unresisting as Ryshan flipped him over onto his belly. It seemed to take him a very long time to work out how to rest his head so that he wasn’t smothering himself in the mattress; he had to turn his head to the side and pillow his cheek on the comforter, and while he was sorting himself out Ryshan was moving behind him, stripping away the rest of Theron’s clothing. The pilot moved with familiar efficiency, long practiced at getting Theron out of his clothes – especially when Theron was drunk, as he was now. How many times had they done this before?

“Please,” Theron began, and it seemed to take an eternity before he was able to follow the first word up with the second: “Don’t.” Anything more complex than that was too much effort, as much as he wanted to say it out loud. His tongue felt too big for his mouth, his lips too small. His thoughts were like bubbles, bouncing over each other and popping before they could get big enough to be vocalized.

The sound of spitting, and then calloused fingers were probing between Theron’s buttocks. He murmured “no” again, or tried to, the word ending on a sharp hiss of pain as Ryshan slid a barely-wet finger inside of him. The finger worked its way in and out, and it was too dry to feel good. Normally Rysh was more considerate than this, but maybe this was a game they were playing at. Theron didn’t remember agreeing to any games – hadn’t he been saying no? – and he couldn’t recall what the safe-word was, the word he should say to call things off. Rysh always liked it when Theron resisted; it made things more fun, gave their romps an added bit of spice. Rysh liked games of resistance and force. He was generous, but he liked to hurt. One finger became two and they were still too dry, and when Ryshan began scissoring them inside of him Theron let out a whine of pain that was muffled by the comforter. Theron struggled a little, weak as a newborn kitten, only for Rysh to smack him soundly on the ass.

“Be good,” Ryshan muttered, kissing the back of Theron’s neck. His mouth was wet and when he pulled away Theron’s skin felt cold. He slapped Theron again, fucking his fingers in a little harder, a little faster, and then he was sliding his fingers out only to replace them with something else entirely.

Too hard, too fast: it hurt and Theron made a keening sound that caused Ryshan to laugh and spank him again. Theron didn’t like it, didn’t want it, but he couldn’t remember how to make his lips form the word “no” and he had forgotten their safe-word. Then Ryshan was fucking him into the mattress and it wasn’t good, it didn’t feel right, and Theron was sure he didn’t want this.

It was very quick, after that – or Theron lost time again, he couldn’t be sure which. One moment Ryshan was thrusting inside of him and the next Theron felt a hot, sticky splash across his back, and Rysh was murmuring about how _good_ he was. _You’re so good, baby, I told you it’d feel good._ The praise made Theron feel uncomfortable and warm, and when Ryshan shifted him over onto his back again Theron went unresisting, his hips bucking upwards into Rysh’s hands as the pilot stroked him to his own completion. Rysh kept stroking him and praising him even after the last hot spurts splashed across his stomach and Theron let out a whimper of pain: too sensitive, too much. _Stop._ Ryshan told Theron how pretty he was, how good he looked facedown on the bed, how tight his ass was and how good he felt. The praise was familiar but it didn’t make Theron feel good and didn’t make anything about this feel right. Afterwards – the exact length of time lost to Theron – Ryshan maneuvered Theron back onto his belly and fucked him again, harder this time now that he had Theron loosened up, strong fingers pressing bruises into Theron’s hips as he pounded him into the mattress, fucking him hard and fast until Theron passed out on top of the sweaty, sticky sheets.

Theron drifted in and out of consciousness for the next little while, waking up to blurry, brief snippets that had no real context or clarity – just moments of wakefulness that seemed all part of the same long, shifting dream. He was dimly aware that Ryshan helped himself to his body a few more times during the night, and under different circumstances he might have been impressed by the man’s stamina. As it was all Theron could do was try to drag himself away, to crawl away from Ryshan on the mattress, his arms and legs too weak to support him in his efforts to escape. Rysh just chuckled and hauled him in closer and then manipulated his body whichever way he wanted it, positioning Theron on his belly or his back or, once, on his back with his head hanging off the edge of the mattress so that Ryshan could thrust into his mouth.

When Theron woke up a great while later his body was sore and his mouth tasted like blood, semen and whiskey-flavoured vomit. Ryshan was asleep – or passed out – sprawled naked across the bed looking like he’d just come from a photo-shoot rather than collapsing after a night of debauchery. It wasn’t fair: Theron felt like he’d been trampled under a herd of bantha and Ryshan looked like a kriffing fashion model.

He was sticky with sweat and other bodily fluids, and he rather desperately wanted to take a shower, but the thought of spending any more time in Ryshan’s rooms made Theron’s skin crawl. He moved as quietly as a hung-over man could move, tiptoeing around the motel suite to retrieve his clothing. Theron had to stifle a cringe at the way his trousers stuck to his skin, especially around his thighs and ass, and he couldn’t bring himself to re-don stained boxers; those he just left on the floor beside the bed. There was blood between his legs, and _that_ was a discovery he could have done without, frankly, not to mention one that probably bore closer examination.

His head was pounding: one part hangover, one part the intense, suffocating guilt that was creeping up over him at the realization of what he’d done. When he bent to pick up his T-shirt the nausea that swept over him was unavoidable, and he didn’t have time to stumble into the ‘fresher. Instead, he doubled over and puked on the floor by the bed, and fuck, it smelled like whiskey and burned all the way back up.

It had been a long time since Theron had last done the walk of shame, and as he made his way from Ryshan’s motel room to Caedan’s ship he felt certain that everyone who saw him knew _exactly_ what he’d done. The shame and the guilt beat at him, forcing him to walk faster than his aching body was comfortable with, and he accepted that pain as his just deserts for his behaviour. By the time he made it back to the _Vigilant_ Theron was shaking and shivering, nausea crashing over him in waves. His shirt was stuck to him with sweat and he was keenly aware of every single bruise Ryshan had left on his body even if he had no memory of acquiring most of those bruises.

The ship was mercifully empty, and Theron debated whether or not he’d have enough time to shower before Caedan and Kaliyo returned. He decided against it; he rather desperately wanted to wash, but he didn’t want to explain to either of them why he was so in need of showering, and there was a part of him that said he deserved every bit of misery he felt. The gross, clammy skin, the blood and semen that made the hairs on the backs of his thighs stick to his legs and his legs to the insides of his trousers, the taste of vomit in his mouth: he deserved all of that and more. The only good thing he’d done all night was to get the schematics from Ryshan; those, at least, were still safely stored in a pocket inside his jacket. Maybe that success would be enough to make Vector forgive him, but Theron doubted it.

The next time Theron felt his gorge rising he managed to stagger into the ‘fresher to throw up in the toilet. He rinsed his mouth out a few times; there was blood in his spittle, and he couldn’t bring himself to care whether it was from a cut inside his mouth or whether he’d thrown it up. He didn’t have a toothbrush on board the _Vigilant_ and so had to make do with rinsing with water. He didn’t have _any_ toiletries on board the _Vigilant:_ this wasn’t supposed to be a pleasure-cruise, he was supposed to be _working._ He certainly wasn’t supposed to be fucking Ryshan _kriffing_ Esselby.

Stars, he’d fucked up. Big time. _Huge._ He should have known better, should have seen it coming. He’d always been weak around Ryshan, but he would’ve thought, after the betrayal on Bumblefucknowhere, that he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the man. And in the months since that _horrible_ fucking Sith lord and her _horrible_ fucking ship Theron had barely touched Vector – the man he was supposed to love and who loved him in return – and yet, what? He just dropped his trousers the moment Ryshan looked at him?

What the fuck was _wrong_ with him?

Theron scrubbed his hands over his face, ignoring the way they were shaking, and swallowed against the urge to vomit again. His skin felt tight and taut and he wanted very badly to crawl into the shower and cry. He didn’t have _time_ for this. He’d made his fucking bed, now he had to lie in it.

“Shit.” Theron splashed cold water over his face; it didn’t help, not in the slightest. When he looked up at his own reflection in the mirror over the sink he couldn’t bring himself to meet his own gaze. Instead he just assessed the damage – swollen, red lips; reddened, sunken eyes; skin too pale – and did what he could to disguise it. There was a hickey on his neck and bruises around his wrists, but he thought if he kept his jacket on maybe Caedan and Kaliyo wouldn’t notice. He didn’t want to face Kaliyo’s knowing looks or the confusion he’d see in Caedan’s eyes. He certainly didn’t want to spend the next few hours stuck on a ship with the two of them, pretending everything was fine when all he wanted to do was climb into the shower, crank the water temperature and pressure to max, and let his skin melt away along with all of the evidence of what he’d done.

“Shit,” Theron said again, softer this time. He’d fucked up. Man, had he _ever_ fucked up.

O o O o O

Theron was already on board the _Vigilant_ by the time Caedan and Kaliyo returned, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a vibroblade. Caedan was tired and sore, the deeply scarred skin around his midsection pulling with every step, and all he wanted to do was crash in his bunk in the captain’s quarters. But Theron was quiet and embarrassed, muttering something about food poisoning and a suspicious gorak stand he shouldn’t have trusted, and Caedan didn’t trust Kaliyo alone on the bridge of the Vigilant, so rest would have to wait until they were back on Odessen. Instead of collapsing on his bunk like he wanted to, Caedan was ushering Theron in to rest (and the thought of Theron Shan sprawled across Caedan’s bed made Caedan’s stomach do several nervous, excited flips until he forced himself to focus on the task at hand) before settling into the pilot’s seat on the bridge.

Kaliyo had looked around – Caedan remembered her being on board the _Vigilant_ before, close to a decade ago, as some sort of favour to Doc – and shrugged expansively. “I could stay and help but … I don’t want to.” And with that she’d left, stomping in the direction of the galley and leaving Caedan alone. And as annoying as it was to be left with the responsibility of getting the three of them back to Odessen, he was glad to see the back of her. He didn’t know why Theron thought Kaliyo would be useful to the Alliance, but Caedan was seriously considering whether or not it was worth the fight to kick her off the ship. Only the realization that Theron didn’t really seem in any condition for that kind of argument kept Caedan from acting on his impulses. They could argue about it later, when Theron felt better. Maybe by then Kaliyo would’ve proven her usefulness - or her untrustworthiness, and then Caedan could be rid of her.

Theron certainly did look unwell and Caedan had had his own unpleasant experiences with the roast gorak stalls that were so popular on Zakuul, so he could sympathize. He didn’t understand why Theron hadn’t just come back to the ship if he was feeling hungry, but maybe the former SIS agent had a thing for the sauce; Koth _did_ say there was something about it that kept him coming back, even when he ought to have known better.

 _He’s lying to you._ Valkorion’s voice, always unwelcome and uninvited, whispered through Caedan’s mind as he plugged in the coordinates for the return trip to Odessen. Caedan tried to ignore the former Sith emperor, focusing instead on how wonderful it was to be at the helm of his own ship again, even if Theron and his people hadn’t had much success in finding Caedan’s old crew. Tee-seven had been enough of a delight; he had faith that Theron would be able to track down Kira and Rusk and the others soon enough.

 _He’s lying to you,_ Valkorion said again, and Caedan’s hand clenched around the armrest of his seat. _He’s lying to you because he thinks you’re too stupid to see the truth. But you see it, don’t you, Jedi? You see what he’s trying to hide._

Caedan _did_ see it – or he thought he did, anyway. And he didn’t think Theron was lying to him because he thought Caedan was stupid. Rather, Caedan was fairly confident that Theron was lying because the truth made him uncomfortable and because the fiction was safer. It frustrated Caedan, because when Theron had first shown up – that awkward day on Odessen when Caedan had said or done the wrong thing and sent the other man fleeing – Caedan had _finally_ felt like he’d found a connection to his old life. Tee-seven was great, of course, but Caedan was trapped in an unfamiliar world, wearing an unfamiliar title in an unfamiliar role. As wonderful and supportive as Koth, Senya and Lana had been – and Koth’s crew, what a phenomenal group of people! – Theron was one of the few people Caedan had known from _before._ And yeah, Caedan could definitely sense that there was something going on with Theron, but in the months since he’d been living on Odessen and they’d been spending time together he had thought they were starting to reconnect.

Now, though, Theron was lying about food poisoning and acting all awkward and strange again, and Caedan didn’t really know what to do about that. He’d known other Force-sensitives – including that Force-be-damned snake inside his head – who were better at reading people through the Force, but Caedan had always favoured the blunt approach. It hurt him to realize that Theron, spy that he was, was far better at hiding himself than Caedan was at reading him.

 _Maybe he’s just sick,_ Caedan thought, deliberately ignoring the derisive laughter that rippled inside his head at the idea. Sick, no – hung over, though, that was a distinct possibility. But there was more to it than just that - more than just a night of overindulgence that the former SIS agent was too embarrassed to admit to.

 _He smells of sex and blood,_ Valkorion mused. Caedan wrinkled his nose at the thought and was grateful that whatever the ghost inside his head brought to the table, at least Valkorion wasn’t also granting him the dubious “gift” of heightened senses – if _that_ was what he was smelling. Still, Theron Shan was a grown man, and if he wanted to go off somewhere – on his own time – and get drunk and laid, well, what was wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing, that’s what. So why, then, was he lying about it?

Valkorion chuckled again, the same mean-spirited laughter as before, and Caedan resisted the urge to slam his head down on the console and see if _that_ would finally be enough to shut the dead man up.

O o O o O

The debriefing in the War Room took remarkably little time. Theron was pretty confident Lana saw through his food poisoning excuse, but he must have looked pitiable enough that she didn’t feel like probing any deeper at the true source of his misery. Caedan kept shooting Theron looks but when the debriefing was finally over the Jedi made no effort to stop him from racing back to his own private room on the base.

As soon as the door was shut and locked Theron began stripping out of his clothing, eager to be rid of his sweat-soaked shirt and trousers and get to finally take the shower he’d been pining after since he’d woken in Ryshan’s bed. The lights in his quarters were mercifully dim, but he could still see the ring of bruises around his wrists, more bruises over his hips, bite marks on his chest. Ryshan had always taken delight in leaving Theron marked; it seemed this time was to be no different.

Theron cranked the shower up as hot as he could stand, and by the time he stepped in under the spray of water the tiny ‘fresher was thick with steam. The heat made his nausea worse and he felt a little dizzy, but he managed to keep himself upright by slapping both palms against the side of the stall and holding on for dear life. Once the nausea and dizziness passed Theron wet a cloth and scrubbed between his legs. It probably looked worse than it was ( _stars, please let it be no worse than it looks,_ the last thing he wanted was to see a medic over _this),_ but the water that circles around the drain is stained pink with blood and Theron is aware of a dull, burning ache that makes him reluctant to scrub too hard just as it fills him with the determination to clean himself as thoroughly as possible. He endured several painful minutes of hard, rough scrubbing before realizing it wasn’t his flesh that felt dirty.

His fist slammed into the stone wall before Theron even realized he was moving, the sudden, jarring pain enough to shake him out of his trance. Then, savoring the ache of it, he punched the wall a few more times, the pain radiating up from his split knuckles all the way to his shoulder. With each and every punch a voice in the back of Theron’s head muttered at him: _Weak. Asshole. Idiot. Cheat._

 _“Fuck!”_ Theron bellowed, grabbing at the metal rack filled with toiletries and yanking it loose from its moorings. Shampoos, conditioners, body washes and soaps went tumbling to the floor of the shower stall. One bottle cracked open, spilling woodsy-scented shampoo down the drain. It was the kind Miranza tended to purchase for him; he had picked it out because it made him think of her, of her choosing it for him.

He sucked in several deep breaths, head pressed against the stone wall, water splashing down over his shoulders and back. His shoulder ached from the force of his blows, but nowhere near as much as his hand hurt; it was possible he had busted something, something more than just splitting the skin over his knuckles. He didn’t care if he’d broken something. He deserved it.

Once he was certain his body was as clean as it was ever going to be, Theron turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. As he did so he became aware of a quiet knocking and realized, with a pang of terror, that someone was at the door.

He’d already spoken to Lana. Miranza still hadn’t returned from her tenure with Darth Occlus. Koth and Senya were more likely to wait to speak to him the next time he was at the cantina; they wouldn’t come to his private room. While there were other people on Odessen who might seek Theron out, he was confident he knew who was at the door. The urge to ignore the knocking was strong; he might have given in if it weren’t for the knowledge that if it was who he thought it was, that person could come in regardless of whether or not Theron answered the door for him. Vector had the codes to override the door locks to Theron’s room. He wouldn’t use them spuriously, but if he thought Theron was in trouble …

Theron sighed and grabbed a towel, hastily scrubbing himself dry before slinging the towel around his hips. The bite marks on his chest stood out livid against his tan skin; there was no pretending that wasn’t exactly what it looked like. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning to keep this a secret from Vector.

He stomped towards the door, throwing it open in time to see Vector – as expected – standing outside with his hand poised to knock again. Vector blinked at him a few times, fathomless black eyes no doubt taking in every single aspect of Theron’s appearance, from his still-dripping hair to the hickey on his neck to the bruises that were starting to mark almost every square inch of skin. Vector’s mouth opened and closed, and then he took a step back, a number of conflicting emotions passing across his handsome face.

Stars, Theron ached seeing his lover like this. When Vector’s expression at last resolved into one of concern and sympathy something hardened in Theron’s chest. He did not deserve this man. Look what he’d fucking _done._ The evidence of his tryst with Ryshan was all over his body, and Vector was looking at him as though he was _worried_ about Theron? As though Theron hadn’t just betrayed him and Miranza both?

He didn’t deserve them, and it made Theron _furious._ It wasn’t Vector he was furious with, of course, but he was there, a convenient target. His only target.

“You know what? _Fine._ Fine, let’s do this.” Theron spoke before Vector could open his mouth again, the words spilling fast and furious from his lips, and he shoved his guilt and anger down as hard as he could because the only way he could do this was to be cruel.

“I fucked Ryshan,” Theron said, while Vector stood there staring at him. “I cheated on you and Miranza with him. Got it? I fucked him. Can’t get it up for you, but no fucking problem bending over for him, right? Because that captain, back on …” He couldn’t say the names, not _her_ name, not her _ship’s_ name, not that fucking asshole guard captain’s name, none of it, the words absolutely _would not_ cross his lips no matter how much he tried to force them out. He swallowed, tasting blood and bile in the back of his throat. “Well, I guess he was right. I _am_ a whore and fucking _is_ all I’m good for.”

And then, before Vector could say a word, Theron slammed the door shut in his face – but not before he saw the hurt and betrayal in Vector’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoiler-Intensive Trigger Warnings:** This chapter contains scenes of sexual assault that are _far_ more explicit than is my typical preference. The assault occurs between two characters who are not romantically linked, but who were in a previous sexual relationship. Both characters have been drinking but one, the victim, is significantly more impaired than the other and is not capable of granting consent; it might be safe to assume that the other person intended for this to happen (although this is not made clear). Additionally, it is very clear that the victim is refusing sexual contact, repeatedly, and these refusals are dismissed and flat-out ignored. The victim is assaulted repeatedly. The sex is described graphically but in what I hope is not perceived as a sensual or desirable manner (it is more crude and clinical). The victim believes themselves responsible and complicit in what happens and does not perceive it to be an act of rape. There is a significant amount of victim (self-)blaming, which leads to a deliberate act of self-harm. _Nota Bene:_ The views of the character do not reflect the views of the author.
> 
> "Blurred Lines" is by Robin Thicke. I actually rather despise this song but it seemed thematically appropriate. I strongly recommend that once you've finished reading this chapter, you have a drink of water, hug a loved one and maybe an animal or two, and then go watch Weird Al Yankovic's parody "Word Crimes."
> 
> Self-indulgent ramble here: I normally can't make myself cry with my own material. It's like tickling myself: I know what's coming so I don't feel it as much and it doesn't have the same impact. This chapter, much like the earlier chapter featuring Miranza on Dromund Kaas, was profoundly upsetting for me, and I _did_ cry while editing it. (Especially the ending. _Fuck,_ that hurt.) It was also rather cathartic, and I'll be honest - for me, personally, the victim-blaming aspect was a lot harder to handle because it is painfully relatable.
> 
> So, um, yeah. Thanks for reading my self-indulgent shit, and please take care of yourselves out there.
> 
> Oh, and as another note: Yes, Theron has met Doc (the "mutual acquaintance" referred to at the beginning of the chapter) but that brief relationship didn't seem worth mentioning and isn't something he would necessarily connect between Caedan Savarr and Kaliyo Djannis. Ryshan Esselby is my OC from the unfinished (and on indefinite hiatus) _Past Imperfect_. Surprise, he survived. (Sorry.)


	39. Came Back Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last: reunion.

_**From the previous chapter:** _

_[Theron] stomped towards the door, throwing it open in time to see Vector – as expected – standing outside with his hand poised to knock again. Vector blinked at him a few times, fathomless black eyes no doubt taking in every single aspect of Theron’s appearance, from his still-dripping hair to the hickey on his neck to the bruises that were starting to mark almost every square inch of skin. Vector’s mouth opened and closed, and then he took a step back, a number of conflicting emotions passing across his handsome face._

_Stars, Theron ached seeing his lover like this. When Vector’s expression at last resolved into one of concern and sympathy something hardened in Theron’s chest. He did not deserve this man. Look what he’d fucking done. The evidence of his tryst with Ryshan was all over his body, and Vector was looking at him as though he was worried about Theron? As though Theron hadn’t just betrayed him and Miranza both?_

_He didn’t deserve them, and it made Theron furious. It wasn’t Vector he was furious with, of course, but he was there, a convenient target. His only target._

_“You know what? Fine. Fine, let’s do this.” Theron spoke before Vector could open his mouth again, the words spilling fast and furious from his lips, and he shoved his guilt and anger down as hard as he could because the only way he could do this was to be cruel._

_“I fucked Ryshan,” Theron said, while Vector stood there staring at him. “I cheated on you and Miranza with him. Got it? I fucked him. Can’t get it up for you, but no fucking problem bending over for him, right? Because that captain, back on …” He couldn’t say the names, not her name, not her ship’s name, not that fucking asshole guard captain’s name, none of it, the words absolutely would not cross his lips no matter how much he tried to force them out. He swallowed, tasting blood and bile in the back of his throat. “Well, I guess he was right. I am a whore and fucking is all I’m good for.”_

_And then, before Vector could say a word, Theron slammed the door shut in his face – but not before he saw the hurt and betrayal in Vector’s eyes._

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Morning found Vector and Theron standing side by side on the overlook, both men stiff and awkward as they watched the ships coming in. Theron’s right hand was swathed in bandages and Vector wanted very badly to ask what had happened, but the words kept dying before they could leave his mouth. He didn’t need to be able to read auras to see the confused blend of emotions playing through the other man’s body; guilt and shame were at the forefront of Theron’s mind, hidden behind a cold, impassive veneer that cut through Vector as deeply as the angry words the night before.

It was, Vector had already determined, entirely Vector’s fault, and yet Theron – so caught up in his own guilt and remorse – would hear nothing of it. The conversation should have happened sooner. Vector had meant for it to happen sooner, but he had wanted Miranza there so that all three of them could be on the same page, and he hadn’t thought it would be necessary so soon. He thought they’d be having the conversation about _Caedan,_ and that since Caedan and Theron were obviously still sniffing each other out the chat could wait because they weren’t going to be rushing into things.

Vector and Miranza had had the conversation before formally (if privately) committing themselves to each other. They’d had it again, and again and again and again, over the years as their relationship shifted to meet the demands of life. Every relationship required communication, after all, and the precise nature of theirs was one that could become exceedingly complicated extremely quickly. It was an easy conversation to have with Miranza, and while part of that ease could be explained away by experience – been there, done that – the simple truth of the matter was that things were and had always been remarkably uncomplicated between them. Neither Vector nor Miranza had the baggage that Theron had. They had their own _different_ baggage, of course, but none of it was of the sort where frank and honest communication about the nature of their open relationship might be construed as betrayal or abandonment. With Miranza there had never been the risk of him saying “We desire to have sexual congress with others” and her hearing “You are not enough for us.” With Theron there _was_ that risk - and more besides.

Vector hadn’t planned on having the “how our open relationship works” conversation about _Ryshan_ blasted _Esselby,_ of all people. He hadn’t even realized Ryshan was the contact Theron had been meeting on Zakuul. After everything that had happened he wouldn’t have expected Theron to ever want to see the other man again, much less _sleep_ with him.

It hurt, in a way Vector wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not jealousy – not exactly. Jealousy implied feelings of possession and ownership, and Vector didn’t believe he owned or possessed either Theron or Miranza. They loved each other, and love could be shared. Just because Vector hadn’t slept with anyone other than Theron and Miranza in years didn’t mean that he _couldn’t_ sleep with anyone else; the same rule applied to both of them. They’d never really set down the boundaries of their relationship because they’d never really needed to, and it wasn’t until Vector realized Theron was developing feelings for Caedan Savarr that it occurred to him that perhaps they needed to discuss their boundaries or the lack thereof.

He wasn’t jealous of Ryshan Esselby, but he could acknowledge that it hurt that Theron would choose to sleep with a man who had nearly gotten all three of them killed. A man who, so far as Vector had been able to tell, had never really treated Theron all that well to begin with, and was certainly undeserving of Theron’s affections and physical companionship. Theron was still struggling to recover from everything that had happened on Darth Jadzira’s ship, and it hadn’t occurred to Vector that he would choose to recover with _Ryshan._

_Ah, yes, there it is._ That _is jealousy._ Vector lowered his head, acknowledging the kernel of hurt that had settled in his chest. Theron wasn’t a possession for him to own, but if Theron had asked Vector’s opinion beforehand, before tumbling into bed with Ryshan Esselby, Vector would have said no, he preferred not. He didn’t necessarily believe in veto rights between lovers in open relationships, but Ryshan was the sort of inconsiderate man that made Vector contemplate the idea. Had it been Caedan Savarr that Theron had chosen to break his self-imposed celibacy with, Vector wouldn’t have batted an eye.

But they should have talked about it first, and it was Vector’s fault that they hadn’t. He’d just thought they had more time.

And now Theron felt guilty for cheating, when if they’d had that blasted conversation in the first place he would have understood that neither Vector nor Miranza would have had an issue with him sleeping with someone outside their triad. And so Theron felt guilty, and he wouldn’t talk to Vector about it, and his hand was wrapped in bandages and his aura was so painful and dark that it hurt Vector just to look at him.

Off in the distance a spaceship landed, and both Theron and Vector turned as one to follow it. Had either man seen themselves in a mirror, they would have seen that they both wore the same hopeful, longing expression.

_One year and thirty-three days._ It somehow felt both longer than that, and not nearly long enough.

“Is that her ship?” Theron’s voice was soft, only audible because a part of Vector was always attuned to him.

“Yes.” Around them people milled, aimless, the other denizens of Odessen waiting for their own loved ones to disembark from the various ships that were landing. The morning was busy, the docks were crowded, and every day more and more people were coming to Odessen and joining the Alliance. It was a good thing, but it made it difficult to keep track of the different vessels coming and going from the planet. Vector only recognized the transport because he had memorized the identification numbers painted on the side. From the moment he had received the short communication notifying him of his wife’s imminent return he had committed the details of that return to memory: the ship, the date and time, the projected weather patterns, even the route her ship would take to get to Odessen. He knew, without a shadow of doubt, that this _was_ Miranza’s ship.

Vector and Theron fell back into silence, watching more people flood the dock. Miranza’s transport was one of the larger vessels, and when the doors opened and people began pouring out it seemed that there were more bodies packed inside the ship than it should have reasonably held. Or maybe it was only that there was only one person Vector wanted to see disembarking, and the rush of bodies crowding the dock made it impossible to locate her.

“I don’t see her.” There was a faint note of hysteria in Theron’s voice, and his good hand, where he gripped the railing ahead of them, had gone white-knuckled with tension. “She’s not there.”

Vector didn’t see Miranza either, but he wasn’t yet on the verge of the panic that Theron was apparently facing, and that enabled him to see what Theron could not. And what Vector saw was not Miranza, but rather a strange ebb and flow to the crowd of people departing the ship – a gap that opened up, where people avoided an area seemingly without realizing they were doing so. As he watched, gaze focused on the way people were moving around this gap, he then saw the occasional person stop and frown as if they, too, were noticing the strange fluctuations of the crowd. And then they’d give a little start and make an even greater show of stepping around the empty space as if they’d just noticed something unpleasant in the middle of it.

In the middle of that empty space was a woman, small and slender and wearing matte-black armour with dark red Imperial cogs on the shoulders and over the chest.

It took Vector far, far longer than it should have before he recognized that woman as his wife.

The height was the same, of course: adults did not generally gain or lose much in the way of height once they’d hit their full growth. He thought perhaps Miranza had lost weight, but from the distance it was difficult to say for certain. Her hair was a lighter colour; rather than the familiar dark blonde curls Vector was accustomed to, Miranza’s hair was pulled back straight and tight into a bun on top of her head, and the blonde had lightened to platinum, maybe even silver. He’d seen her wearing wigs or having dyed her hair on numerous occasions, but this change seemed different from those, almost … sinister. Like it had been done _to_ her rather than _by_ her. And the way she held herself …

Miranza Gerrick was a spy, an assassin, and an Imperial agent. She moved with confidence: head up, shoulders back, durasteel in her spine. The woman Vector saw was no less confident, but there was an otherness about her now, and it showed in every movement, every seemingly insignificant glance or gesture. She didn’t so much walk as stalk, movements graceful and predatory, and it reminded Vector of when he’d been a child on Jurio and his parents had taken him to the zoo to see an exhibit of rare jungle cats. The cats had been fresh from the wild, unaccustomed to living in cages or being observed by the public, and he had watched them pace around the confines of their fenced-in pens, measuring the length and breadth of their cages and looking for weaknesses. And every now and again their large golden eyes had fallen on the humans moving around them, and Vector had seen the way they’d assessed the humans, wary and hungry and just waiting for the opportunity to strike. That was how Miranza moved; that was how she observed the people around her. Most people gave her wide berth, unwilling to come too close to her but unaware of consciously doing so; those few who took notice of her startled and backed away, sensing the same predatory glint that Vector had seen in those jungle cats all those years ago.

Vector was about to point her out to Theron, but he sensed it the moment the other man saw her. Theron stiffened, the confusing swirl of his aura growing even more discordant, and then he turned his anguished gaze to Vector.

“What’s _happened_ to her?”

Vector had no idea how to answer that question. Without thinking he reached out and grabbed hold of Theron’s good hand, and to his immense relief Theron didn’t pull away. Instead his cold fingers squeezed around Vector’s.

“We should –” Vector began, but then across the great distance Miranza looked up and out at them, and he saw it the instant her eyes found the two of them standing together. Everything off and alien about her shifted and melted away, and although the physical otherness of her appearance didn’t change, it was enough that the differences in her were like watching the sun come out from behind dark storm clouds. That strange, predatory creature who stalked along the open receiving area changed, and it was his wife, _their partner,_ looking back at them.

She was far away, but not so far away that Vector couldn’t see the smile that broke out over her face: more sunlight bursting out from behind the clouds. Then her lips moved, framing a single word:

_“Wait.”_

And Miranza disappeared.

One moment she was standing in the centre of a massive crowd, people swirling around her but never coming in more than five feet closer to her. Then, just like that, Miranza was _gone_ and the crowd seemed to melt in where she had been as though she had never been there. Only Theron’s startled gasp beside him was enough to convince Vector that his eyes had not deceived him – even his aura-sight was completely unable to discern Miranza’s presence – and Vector felt Theron’s hand squeeze around his.

Then someone screamed – high-pitched and panicking, filled with terror – and Vector saw a sudden commotion several hundred feet away. Now that he had reacclimated himself with Miranza’s appearance he recognized her immediately at the heart of a swirling maelstrom of violence.

Miranza was locked in combat with two men, a third already dead or dying at her feet. Vector didn’t recognize any of the men – they must have come in off one of the newly-arrived ships, because he was certain he knew almost every face on Odessen at this point even if he didn’t yet know everyone by name. Both men were dressed like civilian refugees but they fought like hardened soldiers, working together to try to pin Miranza down. One man had a collapsible staff that he whirled about with the same kind of practiced lethality Vector utilized when wielding his own electrostaff; the other had a vicious-looking serrated blade the length of his arm. Miranza was armed with daggers, sharp, wicked things with black blades that cut through cloth and flesh like a knife through cream.

Even at this great distance Vector could see that Miranza moved faster than he’d ever witnessed before, all that predatory, pent-up grace from earlier exploding into violent action. She twisted and spun, lashing backwards to catch one of the man under the ribs, and as he drew back his fellow moved in to try and stab at her with his serrated blade. Miranza ducked and parried, and when she came up in under the man’s guard there was a sudden splash of crimson before the man dropped to the ground. Someone screamed – whether it was the same person as before or someone new, Vector couldn’t tell – and Miranza lunged around, both daggers sweeping out in a downward stroke that sank into the chest of the last man standing.

Three bodies were on the ground at Miranza’s feet, and around her a circle was forming, stunned bystanders and onlookers trying to both crowd in close enough to see while also staying back far enough to avoid being hit. Vector recognized Alliance troopers moving in, weapons ready and trained on his wife. The sounds of violence and terror had melted away and the overlook was almost eerily silent.

Miranza raised both hands in the air in an obvious gesture of surrender, her daggers clattering to the ground a feet few away from her. She wasn’t even breathing heavily, just holding her hands up, head turning slowly as she took in the people circling around her. From this distance it was difficult to read the expression on her face, but Vector thought he saw a faint smirk tugging at her lips.

The troopers closed in with a rapid surge of motion, and before Vector had time to do anything – call out, dart in to put himself between Miranza and the Alliance soldiers, anything – they moved in, and Miranza went down under their sudden onslaught.

O o O o O

Caedan had a vicious headache and Valkorion was being conspicuously silent when the Jedi Outlander made his way into the makeshift Alliance brig. The Alliance was as yet not the sort of community to require a police force and as such there had not been much need of a jail – until now – and they were woefully unprepared to hold prisoners. Bey’wan Aygo had had his men clear aside a section of the hangar to set up a prison cell using one of the massive cargo crates typically reserved for shipping spaceship parts. The crate, with a forcefield set up at one end in lieu of a door, was the best they’d managed to come up with.

Caedan was relatively confident the woman inside the crate could escape any time she wanted to.

_Miranza Gerrick._ He had read files on her, years and years ago back when he’d been just another Jedi in service to the Republic and the Jedi Order. The files were ridiculously sparse, of course; there wasn’t a lot of information on Imperial Intelligence agents, least of all on the ones they referred to as “cipher agents.” And then, sometime around the same time that Caedan and his team had been making their final push against the Sith Emperor on Dromund Kaas, Miranza Gerrick had just … disappeared.

He had no idea where she’d been in the intervening years, but he knew at some point she and her partner, a strange Imperial diplomat known as a Killik Joiner, had entered into a relationship with Theron Shan. And Theron, at least, was someone Caedan knew relatively well.

That the man Caedan knew – the Republic SIS agent, the son of famous Republic heroes, the poster-boy for the SIS – should wind up with a couple of Imperial spies was … strange. Disconcerting. Stranger still, when Caedan had finally arrived on Odessen Theron and Vector Hyllus, the Joiner, had both been there, but there had been no sign of the agent. And yet Lana Beniko had given Vector private quarters in the married crewmembers section, and Theron didn’t share those quarters with him – most of the time.

It was a mystery, and Caedan _really_ hated mysteries.

And now Miranza Gerrick was here, on Odessen, sitting calmly and patiently inside a cargo crate that had been converted into a jail cell. Three men were dead and Caedan had no kriffing idea what was going on.

“Assassins?” he repeated incredulously, rubbing at the growing ache behind his temples.

The Alliance trooper – a former member of Republic military, if his armour and blunt Coruscanti accent were anything to go by – just shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, sir, that’s what she said, sir.”

“Imperial assassins.” Caedan tried the words out on his tongue, tested the weight of them. “But not sent by Empress Acina.”

“No, sir,” said the soldier. “So she says, sir.”

“All right.” Caedan motioned for the man to lead the way. “Let’s … Let’s get this over with.”

The trooper led him into the makeshift brig, towards the cargo crate. The forcefield crackled over the entrance, casting a hazy red light over the area. Inside the crate, Miranza Gerrick sat on an overturned supply box, prim and proper like a schoolgirl in class. Her poise was rather spoiled by the arm that rested in her lap; the arm had been broken when Alliance soldiers had taken her down, and the best that had been done for her had been to splint and bandage the break. No kolto, no Force-healing. She was a prisoner and resources were scarce; they weren’t going to waste those resources on her. By all accounts she hadn’t even put up a struggle – had clearly surrendered herself – but the soldiers had taken her down hard. The broken arm was one thing; the dark bruising across her face, another. Caedan wasn’t comfortable with the rough treatment of prisoners or the half-hearted handling of their injuries, but he wasn’t quite sure yet what he was supposed to say or do about it.

Her personal effects were on a bench outside the cargo crate: matte-black armour, a pair of matched black blades, a duffel bag that had no doubt already been rifled through. She had been given clothes to wear in place of that intimidating armour, for which Caedan was eternally grateful; the last thing he wanted to do was interrogate a prisoner in her underwear. Or worse. But the mismatched clothes were too big for her, the long sleeves of the cheaply-made sweatshirt rolled up over her arms, the pants legs coming down to hide her bare feet, and it made her seem very small and very helpless, especially with the bruises and the splinted arm. She didn’t look dangerous.

Caedan knew from her file that her appearance had changed. He didn’t think much about it: people dyed their hair, lost or gained weight, got tattoos or scars or piercings. He didn’t consider himself an excellent judge of feminine aesthetics but he could tell that she was pretty, very pretty, but in the way that the ice caverns on Hoth were pretty, in the way that Adegan crystals on Ilum were pretty: cold and hard and sharp, all jagged edges. In the red light of the forcefield her white-blonde hair appeared pink and her pale skin looked flush. It was difficult to determine the colour of her eyes; her file said she was supposed to have dark blue eyes, but even with the forcefield they appeared silver to him. He tried to imagine this cold, hard woman with Theron, who was warm and friendly and good, and found that he couldn’t. He thought it might be easier to picture her with her Imperial husband, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea of that elegant, well-spoken gentleman with her, either. Theron and Vector were both far too human (ironically so, in the latter’s case), and this woman seemed more like a force of nature than a person.

She looked up as Caedan approached her cell but made no effort to stand. In fact, aside from the slight lifting of her head she barely moved at all. Up close the bruises on her face were stark and Caedan made a mental note to talk to the troopers responsible for bringing her in. She had been surrendering, Aygo’s man had said. There was no need for this level of violence.

“Miranza Gerrick, I presume?” Caedan said, studying her face for any sort of response. “Or do you prefer Cipher Nine?”

If he’d been hoping for some major response, he was sorely disappointed: the most he got was a faint twitch at the corner of her mouth that barely constituted a smirk. “I’m retired now, actually. Just Miranza is fine, Master Savarr.”

Caedan felt a ripple of disquiet at the realization that the woman knew his name, and then a voice in the back of his head – one that actually _wasn’t_ Valkorion for a change – laughed at him for being an idiot. Everyone on Odessen knew who he was. It wasn’t like there were a lot of Outlanders wandering around the place, after all. (Well, technically there were a lot of _outlanders,_ but he was the only one known as _The Outlander_. It was an important distinction, according to Miss Beniko.)

“Miranza, then.” He nodded politely, then glanced down at her arm, grimacing. “I apologize for the way you’ve been treated, Miranza. That was uncalled for.”

She shrugged, but it was just a tiny lift of one shoulder, the uninjured side. If the movement hurt her, Caedan couldn’t tell. He hated working with spies. Jedi could stand to learn “emotional detachment” from them, if this woman was any indication. She might as well have been carved from stone.

“I’ve had worse,” she said quietly. He tried to get a sense for the emotion behind the words but felt nothing. Her voice was bland, impartial. He almost – almost – wished Valkorion would make an appearance and weigh in on her. She had been one of _his_ people, after all, and as infuriating as the dead man could be he was much better at reading people than Caedan was. But Valkorion remained silent, and Caedan wasn’t so desperate for information that he thought it worth trying to draw him out.

“So.” Caedan paused, uncertain. Interrogation wasn’t his thing, at all. Unfortunately, the people he would normally rely upon for interrogation were all far too close to this particular target: Theron was practically married to the woman, Lana Beniko considered her a friend. Senya was out gathering information, trying to determine the veracity of the claims Miranza had made and to see if she could determine the identities of the three dead men. Koth was good at leading people, not picking them apart. There was no one else, at least none that he trusted. The job fell to Caedan.

“You killed three men,” Caedan said, deciding to simply lay out the facts as they’d been presented to him. “I’ve been informed that you’re claiming they were Imperial assassins, and that I was their supposed target. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” She looked down at her splinted arm, her features impassive. “They were sent by Darth Adanos and Grand Moff Tyzan. Their orders were to make it appear as though your death had been orchestrated by Empress Acina.”

Caedan had never been good at keeping track of the various Darths and Moffs that populated the Sith Empire, but he recognized the current empress’s name, at least. She had seized control after Darth Marr’s death on Zakuul, and there hadn’t been anyone powerful enough to stop her. Miss Beniko had said that the other Dark Council members were either dead or fled. He wondered who Darth Adanos and Grand Moff Tyzan were, and why they would want him dead or Empress Acina framed for it. Politics were not his thing. Politics were not supposed to be a _Jedi_ thing.

“And you’re telling me Empress Acina wasn’t involved?”

“Yes,” Miranza said again.

“And you know this because …?”

“My ma- ” She froze, stumbling over the word, then said instead, “I served Darth Occlus. Her orders were for me to find and kill Darth Adanos’s assassins before they could get to you. That’s what I did.”

“Darth Occlus.” Caedan was dimly familiar with that name, could vaguely recall a Sith lord who had briefly served on the Dark Council before retiring to work on her research. Perhaps “retiring” wasn’t the correct term, if she was still involved in Sith politics. “You serve her, then?” He took a stab in the dark. “She’s your master?”

He only saw the flinch because he was looking for it, but Miranza did definitely flinch. She composed herself quickly, face resuming its impassive, vaguely bored expression.

“I _served_ her,” she said calmly. She looked up, past Caedan, as though trying to see something outside her cell. “Technically speaking, my tenure ended about four hours ago.” Four hours ago would have been about an hour or two after the three men had been killed. She must work quickly, then, to have arrived on Odessen, found her targets and killed them, and then still been on Darth Occlus’s clock. Caedan wondered what would have happened if the clock had run out before she had managed to take down her targets – would the three men have been spared, or would there have been some sort of penalty Miranza would have had to face? Would another have been sent in Miranza’s stead? Caedan wasn’t really familiar with the whole “hired assassin” business.

“Why would your master” – another flinch, and it was petty and un-Jedi-like but Caedan felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction at seeing it – “want to interfere with Darth Adanos’s plans? Why does your master” – _flinch_ – “care what happens to me?”

_“My master,”_ Miranza said through gritted teeth, “has no more desire for bowing under Emperor Arcann’s yoke than you do, Jedi, and thinks it’s in the galaxy’s best interests that you be kept alive.”

“Lucky me, then, I guess.” Caedan felt a bit guilty for provoking her; whatever her relationship to Darth Occlus, it was clearly not one she was comfortable with. Bringing up Darth Occlus, referring to the Sith lord as Miranza Gerrick’s “master”: it was the only time he saw her respond in any physical, tangible way. Still, it was not the Jedi way to poke fingers in what was obviously an open wound. He cleared his throat and fixed her with a hard glance. “So, tell me, Miranza Gerrick: why should I believe you?”

Miranza laughed but there was no mirth in it. “It’s the truth. The truth doesn’t require your belief in order for it to be true.”

Caedan blinked at her. It was such a … Jedi thing for someone to say, he could almost imagine the words falling from the lips of his old mentor, Master Orgus Din. That the words were instead flavoured by a strongly Imperial accent – straight out of Kaas City, if Caedan was any expert – made the situation all the more surreal. Here he was, standing in an Odessen hangar outside a modified cargo crate, listening to an Imperial assassin dropping Jedi platitudes. And the sad thing was, this wasn’t even the strangest part of his day.

“Okay, fine.” He shrugged, faintly apologetic. “Are there any more assassins coming for me?”

She returned the shrug, again with only one shoulder. This time he couldn’t help but notice the faint grimace that crossed her features, the way the lines of pain stayed around her eyes. “Probably? You’re the Outlander, people want you dead. But I don’t expect that Darth Adanos will try the same trick a second time, and my – and Darth Occlus will have informed Empress Acina of his duplicity by now. He’s probably already dead, him and Moff Tyzan both.”

“So what happens now?”

There was no mistaking the wariness that marked her features. Miranza looked down at her bandaged arm again, and Caedan saw her flexing her fingers cautiously. It had to hurt.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said at last.

Caedan shifted, uncomfortable. “You killed three men.”

“Yes. I did.” She glanced up. “They were here to kill you.”

“I only have your word for that.”

Miranza sighed, then gave another small half-shrug. “Then I guess it’s up to you, Jedi. If you decide to have me executed, though, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me talk to my husbands first. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

Caedan flinched at that, at the reminder that this woman ( _who brutally cut down three men in cold blood,_ Caedan told himself forcefully) had people who loved her and who had missed her. It hurt even more because Caedan knew those people, and while he wasn’t particularly close to Vector Hyllus he did have a certain fondness for Theron Shan. He didn’t want Theron to suffer. But then, she was – by her own admission – a killer, and she had killed three people, and for all Caedan knew those three men were innocent and hadn’t deserved to die. He couldn’t afford to be lenient on her simply because he was starting to have feelings for one of her partners. (He also couldn’t afford to punish her more harshly for the same reason. “Getting her out of the way” certainly wasn’t going to help matters between him and Theron.) This wasn’t the sort of situation his Jedi training had prepared him for, all things considered.

“Then again,” Miranza said after a moment, cocking an eyebrow at him and glancing meaningfully around her cell, “How long do you think this cage will hold me?”

Caedan couldn’t help the sudden startled bark of laughter that escaped him. She was injured, unarmed, and sitting in a barricaded cargo crate in the middle of an Alliance base, with soldiers all around and no way to get off the planet. What did she think she was going to do? Before he could ask her that, however, Miranza shifted around until she was lying down on her back on top of her makeshift bench, her broken arm resting across her stomach and her good hand in the air. And as Caedan watched, puzzled and mystified, darkness seemed to coalesce around the fingers of her good hand and something _itched_ in the back of his mind – and then, out of nowhere, there was a dagger in her hand. She flipped it up into the air and caught it, hilt-first, before giving it another flip. Just like that, the dagger disappeared, and Caedan heard a clattering sound from nearby: the sound of one of her black daggers tumbling off the bench outside her cell and onto the floor.

She had been unarmed. Caedan _knew_ that. She had been stripped down and handed clothing that wasn’t hers, and that had been the only thing that had gone into the cell with her. She had pulled that dagger out of nowhere.

“How did you do that?” he whispered, resisting the urge to look around and see if anyone else had noticed. Surely, if one of her guards had spotted the prisoner suddenly sprouting weaponry they would have said something, right? “You’re not … Are you … Are you Force-sensitive?” She _wasn’t,_ he was certain of it; that sort of information would have been in her file. He would have sensed it long before now.

Miranza smirked at him, gaze fixed on the ceiling of the crate. “I’m complicated.”

O o O o O

It was later – much, much later, well after midnight when most of the Odessen base had gone to sleep – when Theron and Vector were finally permitted to escort Miranza away from the makeshift brig. Theron had no idea what had happened between her and Caedan, but the Jedi clearly wanted nothing to do with her. From what Lana had been able to tell Theron – in hushed undertones, after drawing him and Vector aside outside the hangar – Senya had returned with confirmation that the three dead men had indeed been Imperial assassins, sent by one of Empress Acina’s rivals to try and take down the Outlander. There had been enough evidence in their effects to make their connections very obvious, and had they completed their assignment instead of being killed by Miranza they would have been able to leave that evidence behind to frame the Sith empress. Caedan didn’t want Miranza going anywhere unescorted – he rather understandably did not trust her – but there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping her locked up.

Miranza just seemed amused. Then, when she and Theron and Vector were finally, finally alone together in Vector’s quarters, the relief that washed over her was so strong and so sudden it left her crumpled in their arms.

There was a lot Theron wanted to say, but none of it that could be said without ruining a moment he’d been waiting over a year for. Instead, he and Vector sank down onto the bed on either side of her, their arms wrapped around her waist, the three of them curling in and around each other. Vector was upset about Miranza’s broken arm, but a trip from the brig to the infirmary to get kolto and a proper cast saw the injury properly treated, and Miranza herself seemed untroubled, saying only that the soldiers had seen her as a threat and acted accordingly. Theron wanted to be upset, too, but he was far too overcome with relief at finally seeing her again that he found himself unable to be overly troubled by anything else, especially if she wasn’t going to be troubled by it.

They didn’t talk about Darth Jadzira or Darth Occlus. They didn’t talk about Ryshan Esselby. They didn’t talk about the fact that Theron and Vector had their own separate rooms, although that night Theron shared theirs. It was late, ridiculously late, and they were all exhausted and overwrought. There was so much to say, so much ground to cover, but none of them had the energy or the resolve to tackle it then. Some conversations were better held in the morning, anyway.

Miranza, cradling her broken arm to her chest, crawled into the centre of the bed still clad in her too-large sweatshirt and pants. Vector followed her without hesitation, curling up behind her with his arm slung over her hips, drawing her in close so that her back was pressed tight against his chest. Theron, after a moment of uncertainty, took Vector’s lead and settled down on Miranza’s opposite side, careful not to jostle her. Her breath was warm against his face and in the darkness of Vector’s room he could no longer see the changes that had been wrought in her during her absence. Instead, she was simply the Miranza he knew and loved, her place between him and Vector the normal, right course of the galaxy. This was just how it was supposed to be, how the galaxy was supposed to work.

The three of them lay together in the darkness, sharing a bed for the first time in well over a year, and for the first time in more than a year Theron was at peace.

O o O o O

Soft, wrenching sobs woke Vector a short while later. He awakened disoriented, but quickly recognized his surroundings: his room, the married crew quarters on Odessen, in his own bed, with his lovers beside him.

Miranza was crying. He could tell she was trying to be quiet, so as not to wake him or Theron, but her entire body shuddered with the force of her sobs and he was pressed too close to her not to notice.

Vector planted a gentle kiss at the base of Miranza’s neck, his lips soft and dry. She stiffened, letting out another hoarse sob, and he ran a hand over her hip, feeling the cheap fabric of her borrowed pants against his palm. Another kiss just above the curve of her shoulder, his hand rubbing slowly and idly along her hip.

_“I’m home.”_

The words were whispered so quietly Vector might have imagined them, but then Miranza repeated them again, murmuring it over and over again like a prayer. Vector swallowed down a sob of his own, watching Miranza duck her head and press her face into Theron’s chest, whispering her litany into the other man’s shirt. She had never been to Odessen before, had never stepped foot on the Alliance base until earlier that day, but Vector understood what she meant by “home.” Home wasn’t Odessen or the Alliance or their quarters; it never would be. For vagabonds such as the three of them, drifting from one end of the galaxy to the other, home would never be a place. Home was each other.

“I’m home,” Miranza murmured again, sniffling into Theron’s shirt.

“Yes, beloved,” Vector assured her. “You’re home. _We’re home.”_

Beside them, tangled up in Miranza’s arms in the darkness, Theron met Vector’s eyes. Vector’s dreams that night – what little of that night remained, at least – were of Miranza’s quiet sobbing and the guilt-stricken look on Theron’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Came Back Haunted" is by Nine Inch Nails.
> 
> I had a very politely-worded anonymous request to add an "infidelity/cheating" tag to this fic because of the previous chapter. I'm not going to be adding that tag. Infidelity requires consent. Someone who is raped is not cheating on their partner(s). That _Theron_ believes he's guilty of cheating is something that will be addressed in a later chapter, but Theron is wrong. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you blame the victim for what happens/happened to them, you're an asshole.
> 
> On another, more lighthearted note, there’s a reason I haven’t been more explicit in how many days of service Miranza was to provide to Darth Occlus, and that’s because I’ve found it frustratingly difficult to pin down a specific sort of "Galactic Standard Year." Coruscant has 365 days in a year; other planets have more or less. So while in my head I’ve been thinking "one year = 365 days" and that therefore Miranza has served Darth Occlus for 398 days, that might not be the exact math. And if there _is_ a Galactic Standard Year I could have been using here (one that perhaps didn’t add up to 365 days) I didn’t want to risk confusing my less-canonically-minded readers by doing so. Consequently, Miranza has served Darth Occlus for one year and thirty-three days, and I’ll leave it up to your imaginations to decide how long that _actually_ was.


	40. Clumsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An abrupt wake-up and a much-needed conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a whole lot of victim self-blaming and a frank but necessary discussion of rape

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“Whoever’s calling this kriffing early,” Theron muttered, his voice muffled under his pillow, “I’m going to find them and kill them.”

Vector grumbled and rolled over onto his back, the insistent chiming of the holocomm echoing off the stone walls of their bedroom. Although he didn’t voice it aloud he shared Theron’s sentiment; it was too blasted early to be calling someone and it had taken him a very, _very_ long time to fall asleep the night before. The three of them had likely had about an hour’s sleep at most, and it had been a fretful, restless sleep at that. He made no effort to get out of bed and find the holocomm, however – whoever it was, he had no particular desire to speak with them this early, and perhaps if they ignored the comm it would shut off or go away.

_Yes,_ Vector thought, somewhat ruefully, _Because ignoring our problems has been such an effective method of late._

The heap of blankets in the middle of the bed suddenly surged upwards as Miranza frantically clambered over Theron, crawling out of bed with rather less grace than she had demonstrated the day before. She landed on the stone floor with a dull thud and began digging through her duffel bag, and while it was too dark in their bedroom for Vector to see her physical form clearly, he could see her aura and the panic that filled it.

“Beloved, what –” he began, even as Theron said, “Miri, come back to –”

“I was supposed to check in,” Miranza said, speaking over both of them. Her voice had a high note of fear in it. “After I completed my assignment, I was supposed to … She’ll be angry. She … My master … She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Just as she finished talking the holocomm stopped chiming, and the silence that filled the room was deafening. Miranza made a pained sound and set her comm on the table, then, no less frantic than before, began hurriedly stripping out of her borrowed clothing. Vector noted – with a shared sidelong glance at Theron – that Miranza kept her back turned to the two of them as she undressed, even though it was too dark for either Vector’s Joiner-enhanced vision or Theron’s implants to discern much more than the shape of her. He was unable to tell precisely how deliberate Miranza was being; it was unlike her to be shy, especially around the two of them, and he couldn’t recall the last time she had turned her back to them before getting changed.

Miranza dressed with practiced efficiency, not bothering to turn the light on before pulling on the various pieces of her armour. Even her broken arm and its bulky cast didn’t seem to hamper her in any way, and Vector found himself wondering, with a mixture of idle curiosity and growing apprehension, how many times in the past year she had been injured severely enough to require casts or bandaging. Enough that she had mastered the art of dressing herself without being impeded by said injuries, apparently. That was a troublesome thought. The sweatshirt and pants she had been given down in the brig were discarded on the floor. Her back still to Theron and Vector, she stepped into her pants, and the silence stretched out awkwardly and uncomfortably between them.

It was Theron who broke it, his voice flat as he said, “I thought your service to Darth Occlus was over.”

Miranza froze, the lines of her body going tense. Then, relaxing minutely, she turned to give Theron a look over her shoulder. Vector couldn’t help but notice that her eyes seemed to glitter in the darkness as though lit from within. It was probably a trick of the light: there was some ambient lighting from the console set into the wall. That was it, that was all it was. Her eyes were certainly not glowing. That would be absurd.

“That was a lovely fiction, wasn’t it?” was her cryptic response. She resumed dressing, once more focused on the task at hand.

A sick weight settled in Vector’s chest. One year and thirty-three days: that had been the agreement. He ought to have known – _Miranza_ ought to have known – that Darth Occlus wouldn’t stay true to her word. Then it occurred to him that Miranza _had_ known, or had suspected at least, and had decided the risk was worth the reward. Vector couldn’t fault her for that; he would have gladly sold his own soul thousand times over if it meant bringing Theron home safe. And there had been no mistaking the results: Darth Occlus had fully committed herself to the cause, putting her own resources towards Theron’s rescue as well as involving herself personally. If, in the end, she had decided not to release Miranza from her servitude, at least she had kept up her half of the bargain first.

Armouring completed, Miranza turned back towards the two men and made a concerted effort to smooth her hair back into some semblance of order. Unlike dressing herself, however, this was not a task she could complete one-handed, and she ended up simply running her good hand over her hair a few times to tuck in stray strands.

“I have to go,” she said at last, standing over the bed and staring down at Theron and Vector. Her voice was soft, the notes of panic dulled. “My master doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Without thinking of anything but the need to keep Miranza there with them Vector leaned over Theron and caught hold of his wife’s wrist, his fingers wrapping around her good arm and closing tightly. He felt Theron tense under him, but then Miranza gave a deft twist and suddenly her wrist was free.

“Beloved,” Vector began, then paused, noticing how stern and disapproving he sounded. He tried again, aiming for a more moderate tone. “We should talk, beloved.”

In the darkness Miranza’s aura was clearer than her face, and in it Vector could see worry, regret and faint traces of guilt and shame. He wanted to grab hold of her again and draw her back into the bed with himself and Theron, back into bed where the three of them could snatch the last few hours of sleep before rising together and begin establishing their new morning routine. Instead he settled back, his weight no longer resting on Theron’s side, and watched as Miranza headed for the door.

“We’ll talk later,” she said, and then, just like that, she was gone.

Vector wasn’t sure what he expected to happen once Miranza had left – perhaps that he and Theron would discuss her in her absence, or that they would curl up together and attempt to return to sleep. Instead Theron threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, searching around on the floor for his boots and belt.

“You do not wish to stay?” Vector asked, in as neutral a tone as he could muster. Had he not been a diplomat he likely wouldn’t have managed so well as he did, but years of training had taught him to maintain his composure.

“I’ve got some reports to look over,” Theron replied. There was a note of apology in his voice. “Might as well get an early start.”

Vector swallowed down any number of replies. The thought of sleeping in his bed alone – _again_ – did not appeal to him, and he wanted very badly to plead with Theron to stay. Bad enough that Miranza had left; he had, at least, had some time to grow accustomed to her absence over the past year and change. But Theron’s presence had been an infrequent thing as well, and Vector found he was exceedingly tired of being lonely and alone. Their sleep the night before had been far too brief and restless, but it had been _something,_ and that something had been greatly missed.

Theron stood over the bed much as Miranza had done, gazing down at Vector in the darkness. He was close enough that Vector could see the lines of tension in his body if not the expression on his face, and Theron’s aura was much as Miranza’s had been: filled with guilt and shame and fear.

“I should go, too,” Theron said, somewhat unnecessarily. He shifted, restless, putting his weight first on one foot and then the other. His hand brushed over his hair. “Look, uh … I would appreciate it if you waited for me to be there before you told Miranza about me and Ryshan.”

Vector didn’t need to be able to read auras to sense the anguish radiating off of the other man, and he longed to draw Theron into the comforting circle of his arms and reassure him. He had already been rebuffed once by Miranza that morning; he didn’t fancy a repeat from Theron, too. Instead he nodded slowly and said, as carefully as possible, “We have no intentions of speaking to Miranza about you without your presence.” Then, even more cautiously, “If there is anything to be told, love, it ought best be told by you.”

“Yeah.” Theron shrugged, then moved towards the door. Surrounded in shadow Vector watched as Theron pulled himself together to face the Alliance base: shoulders back, spine rigid, head held high. His aura gave the lie to his composure, but so far as Vector knew he was the only one who could read Theron’s aura, and Theron was skillful enough as a liar to convince everyone else that he was fine. Vector ought to know: Theron had been doing it successfully for the past year. Only a handful of people had any idea how hard the former SIS agent was struggling.

Moving quickly, Theron darted away from the door and back to the bed, bending at the waist and brushing a faint kiss over Vector’s lips. It happened so fast and was so unexpected that Vector didn’t have time to respond, and before the Joiner knew it Theron was out the door.

O o O o O

It had been a long, long time since Theron had last found comfort or peace in meditation.

It was possible that meditation had lost whatever appeal it had once held after he’d been sent away from Tython, those doors barred forever against the life his mother and her mentor had planned for him. He’d kept the habit up, however: waking up in the mornings, meditating for an hour or so followed by exercising (itself a form of meditation), and then finally breaking his fast on something ridiculously healthy. As the years had gone by, so too had the habits he’d learned at Master Zho’s side. What did it matter how long he meditated, if he was never going to be able to wield the Force? What good was self-discipline, if he wasn’t going to be following in his exceptional mother’s footsteps? There didn’t seem a lot of point in walking the walk if his own lack of Force-sensitivity meant he was never going to realize that potential.

Some habits died harder than others. Meditating – or at least attempting to find some measure of peace in the practice – was one of them.

Theron sat cross-legged on a stony overlook well outside the boundaries of the Odessen base, his eyes closed and his hands resting lightly on his knees. When he was younger he would have meditated in a kneeling position, but that was harder on his knees; he wasn’t a teenager anymore and years of pushing his body to its limits were beginning to take their toll. It used to be that he could close his eyes and push away the various aches and pains in his body, but now he was dimly aware of everything: the dull throbbing of the hand he’d battered against the wall of his shower, the headache that lingered behind his eyes, the bruises Ryshan had left all over (never mind the hurts that made sitting for too long a struggle; he was deliberately _not_ thinking about that). He was also aware of the faint breeze that ruffled his hair, the gurgling burble of the brook that ran below his vantage point, the young makrin creepers scampering off in the distance on their ungainly long legs.

This meditation wasn’t comforting, but it _was_ peaceful. Just being away from the base was peaceful: no one who needed him for anything, no reports, no demands. Not having to hold himself as if he wasn’t sore or struggling. No need to pretend he was fine. He could just sit on the over-cropping of rock and _be._ Sooner or later someone would be looking for him, but so far no one had found this particular meditation spot. ( _Hiding spot,_ whispered a voice in the back of Theron’s mind, and that voice wasn’t exactly wrong.) He could be reached by comm if it was necessary. Vector or Lana would worry about him if he didn’t resurface before too long, and then they would start sending him messages, asking him where he was.

He didn’t know yet what Miranza would do.

A part of Theron was fearful that in spite of what he’d said, Vector would go behind his back to discuss Theron’s betrayal with Miranza – that Theron would return to the base and find himself locked out of their shared room, his possessions in a box in his own private quarters (or worse, strewn out in the hall - that was what was supposed to happen in lovers’ quarrels, wasn’t it?). He knew it was an irrational fear; Vector had said it was for Theron to tell Miranza, and Theron knew better than to think Vector would go against his word or behind Theron’s back. More than that, too, Theron knew Vector and Miranza wouldn’t just kick him out of their lives without talking to him first. He could explain himself to Miranza – insofar as Theron was capable of explaining what had happened with Ryshan – and then she and Vector would shut the door in his face, just as he deserved, putting an end to the best relationship he’d ever had.

The relationship he’d destroyed, and for what? One night of less than satisfactory sex with _Ryshan_ fucking _Esselby?_ What was _wrong_ with Theron?

“You’re thinking too hard. It’s a good thing I’m here.”

The sound of Miranza’s voice – wry and light, but with just the faintest hint of concern – startled Theron so badly that he let out an undignified yelp and put a hand on his chest as if that would keep his heart from leaping through it. He had chosen this particular overlook because it was difficult to get to and had a good view of the passage up, which ought to make it so that he would know long in advance before anyone managed to reach him. And normally Miranza took care to avoid startling him, deliberately choosing to step on twigs that would snap under her feet or scuffing at the ground with her boots. She hadn’t done so this time, instead choosing to make her way to his side as silently as the ghost the Empire saw her as. Or perhaps she had teleported there, beside him. After what Theron had witnessed the day before – her disappearing in the middle of a crowd and then reappearing some distance away – he wouldn’t have found the possibility surprising. He wondered how she had found him - so far Vector and Lana hadn’t managed to locate his hiding spot - and his mind ran the gamut of possibilities ranging from pure dumb luck to tracking signals to a newfound ability to hunt by scent or pheromones or some other scary shit. If Miranza was suddenly capable of tracking by heat signals or something, Theron wasn’t sure he wanted to know just yet. He still hadn’t adjusted to her magical disappearing act.

Affecting great nonchalance Theron deliberately did not turn to look at her as he uncrossed his legs and let his feet dangle over the rocky out-cropping. There was a slight rustling sound as Miranza moved closer, and then she sat down beside him, her own legs hanging off the side. He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, watching her settle herself.

She had changed clothing since he’d seen her that morning, after she’d all but bolted out of their shared bedroom. The black armour was gone, exchanged in favour of grey trousers and a loose-fitted long-sleeved T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek pale bun, and now that they were sitting together in broad daylight he could tell that the familiar dark blonde had indeed lightened to something approaching platinum. It didn’t look bleached or dyed, however, but rather as though the colour had been leeched from within.

“Lovely view,” Miranza commented, staring out at the valley below: the tall green trees, the craggy mountainside, the creek that wound its way beneath them.

“Yeah,” Theron agreed, but he was still looking at her. She had changed, in the year she’d been gone, but she was still beautiful. As with her hair, her eyes and skin appeared to have been leeched of colour, as though she had been washed again and again until the gold and blue and cream were faded to platinum and silver and snow. Beautiful, but different.

No doubt sensing his scrutiny on her, Miranza turned, lips quirking upwards in a faint smirk. Her expression faltered, worry clouding her eyes, and she reached up her good hand towards Theron’s face. He couldn’t help himself: he flinched away.

“Oh, _Theron,”_ she breathed.

“Don’t,” he said sharply, sucking in a breath around a chest that suddenly felt too tight. He was acutely aware of the changes Darth Occlus had wrought on Miranza, and he fought against the urge to strip her to see how much deeper and further those changes extended. Instead he forced himself to look away and said, in a voice that sounded like he’d been gargling broken shards of glass, “I’m sorry you sold yourself to Darth Occlus for me. I wasn’t … that wasn’t … I’m not worth it.”

Theron didn’t know what response he was expecting from Miranza – derision, perhaps, or quiet agreement – but instead she let out a harsh bark of laughter and leaned back on her good hand, her gaze fixed out on the valley again.

“You don’t actually get to make that call,” she informed him, in a voice that still held the notes of her laughter in it. He glanced at her, confused, and she clarified, “Whether or not you’re worth it. That was my call to make, and I’m happy with the bargain. I just wish we could’ve saved you sooner.”

“It’s just that –”

“Shut up, Theron.” There was no heat in her voice, no anger, and his mouth slammed shut with a click of his teeth. Miranza shifted, drawing one leg up as she turned her body towards him. Her expression was sober, her earlier mirth gone. “You remember Alderaan, right?”

He made a face. “How could I forget?” In truth Alderaan held some of the happiest memories of his life – but also some of the worst. Miranza had been captured there, taken by a man who blamed her – and not entirely erroneously – for the destruction of everything he had held dear. He’d wanted her to suffer for it, and so she had.

“You made a call.” Miranza rested her broken arm on her drawn-up leg, the fingers of her good hand tugging at the edges of her cast. “You had no idea what would happen to you once you arranged to be taken into Republic custody, but you did it anyway, to save me.”

“It’s not the same,” Theron protested. “I handed myself over to people who worked for my father. The worst that might’ve happened to me would’ve been a week or so in lockup. Not … whatever Darth Occlus did to you.”

“What she did,” Miranza said slowly, “was what I agreed to _let_ her do. I made a choice, Theron. I’d make it again.”

“But you’re afraid of her.”

Miranza flinched, glancing back out into the valley. Theron thought about apologizing, but he wasn’t sure what he’d be apologizing for: for drawing attention to something they both already knew was true, for being the cause of that fear, or for the things Miranza didn’t know about yet, the betrayal with Ryshan.

“I am,” Miranza acknowledged after a moment, going back to picking at her cast. “And I’m … not. It’s complicated.”

“So uncomplicate it for me. What happened to you? What did she do? And why do you still work for her?”

Shifting again so that both legs were up and she was fully facing him, Miranza couldn’t quite meet Theron’s eyes, her gaze instead fixed on his mouth or chin. They were close enough that her knees brushed his thigh.

“I can’t really go into details,” she began, and at his incredulous look she scowled and said, “No, really, I can’t. _Can. Not._ I’m physically incapable of talking about it, about what she did, and if I try to say or do something that comes too close –” Her voice choked and her good hand went up, fingers brushing over the pale skin of her throat. She coughed, trying to clear her throat, and shook her head, giving him a rueful half-smile. “There. _That._ I can’t talk about it. She made sure of that.”

“Miranza –”

“Shut up, Theron,” she said again, without heat. “I made a choice, and now I have to live with it. But it was _my_ choice, so don’t you go using it to punish yourself.” She shrugged, just a slight lifting of her good shoulder. “She made me into a weapon, that’s all I can really tell you, but it’s nothing more or less than what the Empire did before. Just a bit more … Sith magic-y, I suppose. Or rather, Sith alchemy.”

She fell silent and went back to picking at her cast, scraping at a jagged edge of plaster with her fingernail. Theron wanted to ask more questions, but at the same time he was dreadfully afraid of the answers – and the knowledge that whatever Darth Occlus had done, she had done it to Miranza because Miranza had let her, and that agreement had been struck so that Darth Occlus would help get Theron away from Darth Jadzira. Even without the dead Sith’s name being said out loud Theron flinched, a knot of terror twisting inside his gut. As much as he hated himself for needing the rescue, he was so immensely grateful towards Miranza for being willing to go through … whatever she had gone through … in order to save him. The thought of remaining trapped in the Sith lord’s custody made the knot of terror inside him grow and tighten at the same time, until he was all but choking on his fear.

“She wants what’s best for the Empire,” Miranza said after a moment, her voice drawing Theron away from that terrifying pit inside. “She’ll use me as she sees fit – and I agreed to that, Theron – but her goals don’t go against ours. I think, given time, she might be persuaded to join the Alliance.”

“Would you want that?” Theron was proud of how steady he sounded, not the least bit like he was about to fall to pieces in the next five seconds.

“I don’t know.” Another half-shrug. “Right now I can be here, working for the Alliance, and she might expect me to check in from time to time or she might send me off-world on an assignment, if it doesn’t interfere with anything the Alliance needs, but if she came here … If she joined up … I think she might want more from me. I could see the Outlander – or Lana – handing me over to her in the name of expediency. Because she _does_ own me.”

Theron opened his mouth to protest but the words died before they reached his lips. He wanted to say that Caedan wouldn’t be so callous as to give Miranza to Darth Occlus, but in all fairness he didn’t know Caedan well enough to make that call, and maybe, if the Alliance needed it, he would be willing to overlook the needs of one person if it meant benefiting the galaxy as a whole. That was what the Jedi did, wasn’t it? What was one woman, locked in servitude, balanced against the needs of the entire galaxy? And Lana? Lana would do whatever was most pragmatic. She might not be happy about it or comfortable with it, but she would _do_ it. Lana was remarkably capable of making those hard decisions. Theron knew _that_ from painful first-hand experience.

Miranza’s voice echoed in his memory: _“I made a choice.”_ Theron frowned down at his hands, his scowl intensifying as he took in the bandages covering the self-inflicted injuries caused by punching the hard stone wall inside his shower. He wasn’t happy about Miranza’s choice, but it had been _hers_ and her right to make it, and it wasn’t for him to be happy or unhappy about it. And maybe the circumstances weren’t all that different between this decision and the one he’d made on Alderaan. She had given herself to a Sith lord (he suppressed a shudder at the thought, Darth Jadzira’s face looming up in his memory in all her monstrous glory) but the terms had been hers to determine. He had had his father arrange for a “prisoner of war” transfer between him and Miranza on Alderaan, and while he had been reasonably confident he would be safe in Republic custody he had still had the Castellan restraints to deal with – and Miranza and Vector were the ones with the key to breaking that hold. They’d both submitted themselves to imprisonment, or the risk of imprisonment, for the other.

“We’re a couple of idiots, aren’t we?” he said after a moment, forcing himself to smile. He leaned closer to her, brushing the fingers of his uninjured hand over a stray lock of platinum hair. “Love the new look. Are you … Am I allowed to ask about this? Can you talk about it?”

Miranza’s hand came up and cupped his own, and she turned her face towards his palm, planting a soft kiss on his calloused skin. She nodded, although she frowned slightly. “It’s … I can’t get into specifics, but it’s the result of Sith alchemy, like I said. My mas—Darth Occlus is a practitioner; she left the Dark Council to devote her time to research and application. I’m …”

“A science experiment?” Theron was careful to keep his tone lighthearted, and Miranza nodded again, flashing him a grateful expression at his understanding.

“Something like that.”

“And this is how you can … do the things I saw you do?” At Miranza’s cautious nod Theron expanded, “Disappearing and reappearing from out of nowhere? That dagger trick you showed Caedan?”

“That and more.” Miranza grimaced, her hand going to her throat again. “That seems to be about the extent of what I’m allowed to talk about, apparently.” Theron scowled, and she put her hand on his arm, leaning in. “No, it’s fine, I understand her need for secrecy. What she’s done to me, the way she’s” – she winced, shook her head, and took another tack – “Like you said, I’m an experiment. She can’t afford the risk of the details of her experiment getting out – someone might try to copy her, after all – and so she’s ensured that I can’t speak of it. The important thing is that I know what I’m capable of, what these – _ugh_ – changes mean.”

Theron thought about commenting more on her new “look,” but it seemed rather like mentioning a growth spurt or a sudden loss of weight following an illness. Had Miranza dyed or cut her hair, or decided to change up her wardrobe, that would be one thing, and he would’ve felt comfortable remarking on it further because it would have been something under her control. Whatever Darth Occlus had done to her – whether or not Miranza agreed to it – had been outside Miranza’s influence, and so he said the only thing that seemed appropriate.

“You’re beautiful.”

The words fell softly, his tone no less heartfelt for the lack of strength behind it. And she _was_ beautiful, but the fact that her beauty had been altered because of a pact she had entered into because of _him_ made it all the more meaningful and in ways Theron didn’t know how to express. In a way it reminded him of a scar Barrazhat had in the muscle of his shoulder, a gnarly, webbed thing that encompassed almost the whole of his upper back. He had taken the injury protecting Rekka, diving in front of her and blocking a thermal detonator that was about to go off. Barrazhat was exceptionally proud of that scar – granted, he was proud of all of his scars – because it meant that Rekka had survived. The changes wrought to Miranza’s body as a result of Darth Occlus’s Sith alchemy were the scars she had gained protecting Theron. It was impossible not to feel a bit awed by that realization.

“There’s a bit more to it than a new hairdo,” Miranza said quietly before tugging up the sleeve of her shirt.

Theron watched as the fabric pulled away from her cast and then up and over her skin, baring her arm above the cast. Her skin was pale – her skin had always been pale, but now it was almost translucent, the rosy undertones given way to something closer to soft blues – and there, coiling up around her arms, was a band of markings that resembled nothing so much as the vibrant red scales of a snake. It looked like Miranza had had snakes tattooed up her arm.

He reached out to touch the markings only to stop himself, lifting his gaze to meet her eyes. “May I?” When she nodded he brushed his fingertips over Miranza’s skin, drawing back again when she let out a soft hiss and closed her eyes.

“Are you – Does it – Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Miranza opened her eyes again and Theron saw that they were wide, with a tiny sliver of silvery-blue around too-large pupils. “Very much the opposite.”

_That’s … interesting,_ Theron thought, pushing the idea aside as he carefully ran the tip of one finger along the scales decorating Miranza’s arms. She gave a small shiver – and now that he knew better, he could tell that her response was definitely _not_ one of pain – as he traced the serpentine pattern. Her skin was soft and surprisingly warm, given the reasonably cool weather, and he could not detect any noticeable difference in texture between marked and unmarked flesh.

He drew his hand away. “Is there … more?”

“More markings?” Theron noticed Miranza didn’t refer to the marks as tattoos, and when he nodded she returned the gesture with one of her own, her hand fluttering over her body as if to indicate exactly where the markings were. He watched her hand, making a mental tally: her arms, her legs and her back.

“And it … feels good when I touch you?” Theron tried and failed to keep the smirk off his face, and the expression only broadened at Miranza’s answer.

“It always feel good when you touch me, darling.” She winked at him, a deliberately over-the-top bit of flirtation that sent small flutters to his stomach (and heat pooling elsewhere). Then her amusement faded a little and she added, sounding vaguely puzzled, “Most of the time, though, it hurts. Not … not a lot of pain, just a sort of continuous burning ache that never really goes away. It’s … _ah,_ damn, I guess I can’t talk about that, either.”

“You’re in constant pain.” Theron’s voice was flat, and his hand curled into a fist at his side, his fingernails digging into his palm.

“A very minor pain, yes.” Miranza took his fist in her hand, pulling it onto her thigh and coaxing him into relaxing his fingers. She smoothed her fingertips over his open palm, her thumb rubbing over the pulse-point at his wrist. “It’s nothing, Theron. And it really does feel good when you touch me.”

The appropriate response, Theron knew, would be to make a flirtatious joke about how he should always be touching her, then. A year ago he would have made that joke – before Darth Jadzira, before the _Riven._ Now those words died on his lips. He couldn’t joke; not about this.

Miranza saw him fighting with himself, of course, and she continued to rub her thumb over his wrist, the motion steady and soothing. He knew she was likely taking his pulse at the same time, trying to assess how upset he was by what she’d told him. He also got the sense that there was more (because of course there’s more) and that she was working herself up to get to it.

“I need to show you something else,” she said, having reached that point where she found herself able to speak of it, whatever _it_ was. Her eyes darted up to his. “You can’t freak out, though, Theron.”

“You can’t tell me not to freak out,” he protested, as she released his hand and leaned back a little, her fingers tugging on the ends of her T-shirt. “That just makes me want to freak out _more.”_

Miranza didn’t respond to that. Instead, her fingers curled around the hem of her shirt, drawing it upwards. Theron didn’t know what to expect – she’d already indicated there were no serpentine markings on her front, only on her limbs and her back – but once the shirt was pulled away there was no mistaking what she wanted to show him and why she had warned him not to freak out.

Miranza’s stomach was a mess of horrific scarring, the skin stretched taut and twisted. The scars covered most of her abdomen, from just above her left hip to slightly below her right breast, and the damage implied was unimaginable. Theron knew of the scars Caedan Savarr had from being run through by a lightsaber, and those were terrible enough, but this … This looked like someone had taken a shovel and tried to carve Miranza’s midsection out of her body with it.

This wasn’t the sort of damage you were supposed to be able to survive.

The coldly clinical part of Theron’s mind was trying to imagine what had happened, how Miranza could possibly have sustained such injuries and lived to tell the tale. The rest of Theron’s mind – certainly far more than half of it, if he was being honest with himself – was flailing around in panic at the revelation that something had nearly ripped her away from him.

“What … What happened?” he asked, when he found his voice again. It seemed to take a very, very long time before he was able to speak.

“A very large Sith,” Miranza said, “with a _very_ large axe.”

“How did you survive?”

“My master saved me.” For once Miranza didn’t flinch when she said the words, but there was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice. “I represent a rather significant investment of time and energy, after all. It would be a shame for her to lose me before she’s gotten her money’s worth.”

“Oh, Miri.” Theron swallowed hard before adding, “I’m sorry. I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“Theron.” The bitterness held a note of warning. “This _wasn’t_ your fault.”

Theron let out a harsh laugh, pushing himself up to a standing position and walking away from the ledge. He needed to put some distance between himself and Miranza – but also distance between himself and that rocky over-cropping. He wasn’t feeling especially suicidal, but Miranza’s comment had been the opening he had been looking for – and dreading – and he didn’t want to leave himself the option of jumping out into the void if things were about to get as bad as he thought they were.

“I … I get that,” he said, voice shaky. “I’m not apologizing for … for you being hurt. It’s just – _Force,_ fuck, I don’t know, I just … I cheated on you and Vector, Miri.”

“You – what? _Oh._ Oh.” There was a rustling sound behind him, and Theron turned to see Miranza standing and moving towards him. To his great disbelief she didn’t look angry or hurt; in fact, if anything, she seemed completely unsurprised, and for a brief moment he was afraid Vector had already told her. When she continued speaking, however, she put that worry to rest right away: “It’s not … not the end of the galaxy, Theron. I knew you were developing feelings for the Outlander and – ”

It was Theron’s turn to say _Oh,_ and then: “Shit. No, it wasn’t … It wasn’t with Caedan. I … I … Me and Ryshan, we – ”

“You and Ryshan?” Miranza repeated. She still didn’t look hurt or angry, but her confusion definitely increased rather dramatically. “Ryshan Esselby? You slept with _Ryshan Esselby?!?”_

Her complete and utter shock – still with no obvious evidence of any other emotion, and certainly not the sense of betrayal Theron had been expecting from her – left Theron standing in front of her, blinking in confusion, his mouth opening and shutting again with no further words escaping it. Miranza wasn’t angry. Miranza wasn’t hurt. She was confused.

And suddenly Theron felt compelled to explain himself, even though she wasn’t really asking for any explanations.

“I know, I know, he’s awful,” he said, to which Miranza nodded with a rather insulting degree of enthusiasm for that statement. “I didn’t even … I mean, it was such a stupid fucking thing, you know? I didn’t mean to hurt you or Vector, I didn’t mean to cheat on you – I mean, fuck, I told Rysh I wasn’t interested, that I was with the two of you. I guess I just … I was drunk, and – ”

“Theron.” Miranza had gone very, very still, and her voice was quiet but earnest. “Theron, say that again.”

“Which part?” Theron asked, throwing his hands up in the air in confusion. “The part about how it was stupid? Or that he’s awful?”

“No,” Miranza said, speaking very carefully, “The part where you said you told him you weren’t interested.”

“Oh.” He shrugged, acknowledging the stupidity of it. “I don’t know what the kriff I was thinking. You know Rysh, he’s just … He’s really persuasive, you know? We had a few drinks, he got a little pushy, and then …” He made a vague gesture that was supposed to indicate the absurdity of it all, falling into bed with Ryshan Esselby of all people. “The sex wasn’t even that good.”

“How much did you have to drink beforehand?”

Theron winced and hung his head, shamefaced. He had told her he would cut back on his drinking, and then ever since … well, ever since Darth Jadzira he’d been finding it hard to sleep, and sometimes a glass or two (or three or four …) could help to take the edge off. And Rysh was a terrible influence in that respect; Theron had lost track of how many glasses of whiskey the smuggler had sent in his direction.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, unable to look at her. “I’m off the wagon, too. I’m hammered or close to it most nights.”

“And that night? With Ryshan?”

He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Yup, that night, too. The hangover the next day was – ”

Miranza cut him off, moving in close to him, and now he could finally see the anger he’d been expecting, written there plainly on her beautiful face. “Let me test my understanding here, Theron.” He nodded, uncertain, and she continued, “You were drunk.”

“Yes.” Theron looked away, unable to bear the disappointment he knew would be in her eyes. He had tried to curb his drinking, he really, truly had, but after everything … Well. The Alliance did not have time for him to sit around wallowing in misery. As long as he didn’t drink so much that he couldn’t function, what did it matter? But still. Vector never said anything, but that didn’t mean Theron didn’t see the worry and frustration on the Joiner’s face. “I’m sorry, I – ”

_“Stop.”_ Her voice was gentle but firm, and his mouth clicked shut again. “You were drunk. How drunk?”

He scratched at the stubble along his jawline, assessing, then shrugged. _Might as well be honest._ “Completely kriffing wasted.”

“What happened after that?”

Theron flushed and turned away. Miranza’s voice was still gentle, but he could hear the underlying core of durasteel in it. He’d already said what had happened, hadn’t he? He had cheated on her, on her and Vector, with Ryshan. What more needed to be said on the subject? Did she want the gory details? The positions, the number of times Ryshan had made him –

Brutally stomping down on _that_ memory, Theron shrugged again, his face still turned away from Miranza’s. When he spoke again it was as if by rote, reciting events in a dull, flat voice: “We got drunk. He flirted, I turned him down, we drank some more. I was tired – okay, I was hammered – and Rysh’s rooms were closer than Caedan’s ship, so we went there.”

He spared a glance at Miranza, wanting – but also fearing – to see her reaction. Her face was impassive, mouth shut in a firm line, her pale blue eyes glittering strangely. He couldn’t see any judgment on her face – not yet, at least – but it was just a matter of time. Theron sighed.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he continued, rubbing his hand over his scruffy jaw again. He needed a shave. Shaving required looking at himself in the mirror. _Never mind._ “I didn’t … I wasn’t interested in Rysh. I told him that, but he kissed me and I didn’t go anywhere. I could have, but what was the point, right? I’d been leading him on all night. You know what I’m like when I’m drunk. He took me to bed and we fucked, a bunch of times, and – ”

“You said no?”

Theron blinked, startled into silence, and shook his head. Then, confused, he nodded, only to shake his head again. He saw where Miranza was leading, but he wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like that. He should know, he knew exactly what rape looked like, and this? With Ryshan? It was _nothing_ like what Theron had experienced at Samar’s hands, or the whole damned time he’d been in Darth Jadzira’s custody. It hadn’t been _good_ with Ryshan, but that was just because Rysh was a selfish asshole, not because … because …

All at once Theron’s legs made the decision to stop supporting him, and he crumpled to the ground as his knees gave way beneath him. It was suddenly hard to breathe, his chest too tight, his laboured breaths coming in fast and shallow and sounding far too loud in his ears. His hands were tingling and cold. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t _breathe_ –

Strong arms wrapped around him, Miranza’s cast pressing in against his back. Theron had a brief hysterical urge to pull away, but her lips were at his ear, her soft, low voice murmuring soothing nonsense at him, and the fingers of her good hand were carding through his short dark hair.

“You didn’t cheat on us, darling,” she whispered. “You were raped.”

Theron recoiled so violently his head spun, and he shook his head. No. _No._ That wasn’t _right,_ that wasn’t _fair_ for Miranza to absolve him of guilt. He was the guilty party. He had cheated on her, gone behind her back and fucked Ryshan, and for what? The sex had been awful. He’d come away from the whole experience feeling somehow lesser, but that had been the remorse, hadn’t it? He had cheated, he had betrayed his lovers, the two people in the whole galaxy he loved more than he could possibly imagine, and so of course he’d felt terrible about it afterwards but he’d still done it, he’d still fucked Ryshan, and no … No, this wasn’t right. She couldn’t just whisper a few kind words and pet his head and behave as though he wasn’t the one in the wrong. He wasn’t a victim, not this time; he was the criminal.

“He didn’t rape me,” Theron said dully. “I let him. I could have stopped him at any time and I didn’t.”

“Theron.” Miranza sounded tired – exhausted, even – and he dared a glance at her, wincing when he saw the pain and anger on her face. There it was, there was the hurt and disappointment he’d been expecting, and this was the part where she ended things. But Miranza’s next words brought that line of thinking up short: “You shouldn’t have had to stop him, Theron. You said no. He should have stopped.”

He didn’t have a response for that, although he continued to feel as though he should argue the matter. After a moment of silence Miranza opened her arms to him again and he nodded, allowing her to draw him in close once more. His head rested on her shoulder and he breathed her in, noticing the subtle changes in her scent, the familiar vanilla of her shifted into something darker yet at the same time warmer. Her arms were strong and tight around him, the hard contours of her cast digging into his back, and as he settled against her she began stroking her fingers through his hair again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into the side of her neck. He felt her stiffen, then relax, ever so slightly.

“Theron, you have nothing to apologize for.” Miranza’s fingers tightened in his hair, pulling his head back far enough that she could look him in the eye and he could see the resolve in her face. “Do you hear me? _Nothing.”_

Theron couldn’t help the harsh laugh that escaped his lips. “You know I don’t believe that, right?”

“That’s fine,” Miranza replied with a sigh, releasing her grip on him. “I’ll keep saying it until you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Clumsy" is by Our Lady Peace. The lines that spoke to me in particular are from the chorus: "And maybe you should sleep/And maybe you just need, a friend/As clumsy as you've been/There's no one laughing/You will be safe in here." Normally I have Vector be the one who tries to fix and resolve things (because in my mind, Vector Hyllus is perfect and no one can tell me otherwise), but it seemed a little disingenuous here in that he's effectively had a year to work on Theron's problems (minus the recent attack by Ryshan) and for whatever reason it's not worked. So Miranza gets to be the one to take point on Theron's recovery this time around, as clumsy as she is at this sort of thing.
> 
> Apologies for the abrupt and weak ending, but this was getting a little long so I decided to hack this chapter into pieces and re-write the remainder to fit in more with the next chapter.
> 
> One other note: Although I didn't have her go into too much detail on the subject, I based some of Miranza's powers around a theory my husband shared with me regarding Darth Vader. Specifically, the idea was that Emperor Palpatine deliberately arranged for Vader's medical treatment to be incomplete and ineffectual in order to ensure that Vader was in constant pain and suffering, because he could then use that pain and suffering to enhance his Force powers. Miranza isn't Force-sensitive but Darth Occlus's theory is based around the same notion of using her suffering to fuel her powers.


	41. With Nothing On My Tongue But Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing takes on a variety of different forms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Trigger warning for discussion of rape and victim self-blaming (the NSFW part is, however, 100% consensual, even if some thoughts drift in unpleasant ways). Also worth noting is some disordered behaviour (relating to hygiene and diet) on Theron's part indicative of trauma.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

_“Tonight @ 20:30. Our room.”_

The message had chimed on his comm about midway through the day, and Theron had read it over and over again in the brief moments between meetings and impromptu hallway chit-chats. Part of him wanted to ignore the message: wanted to erase it, pretend he hadn’t seen it, and come time for this summons, hide out in his room or somewhere else on the Odessen base where no one could find him. The rest of him – and, thankfully for his self-esteem, the bigger, better part of him – felt a small thrill of hope and comfort each time his eyes skimmed over the two-line directive sent from Miranza’s comm. That it was also the first communication he had received from her in well over a year likely contributed to the more positive emotions he was feeling. It had been a _long_ year.

As the time approached Theron wound down his day. The better part of his afternoon had been spent locked in discussion with Lana, Koth, Caedan and Bey’wan Aygo sorting out the logistics of an upcoming scouting mission to the Endless Swamp, after which he’d finally managed to make a dent in the stack of communiques awaiting his response (which felt far more endless to Theron than any swamp ever could). By the time he returned to his private quarters he was feeling a combination of exhausted, excited and nervous, and the exhaustion was threatening to win out to the point where he seriously considered messaging Miranza and Vector his regrets before collapsing facedown on his bed (likely fully clothed and possibly still wearing boots and holstered blaster pistols, he was _that_ tired). Despite Miranza’s earlier reassurances Theron was half-convinced this meeting with her and Vector was going to be the end of things between the three of them, and as much as it was a conversation Theron could do without it was also one he wanted to get over with as soon as possible so that he could get on with his life.

More than a year ago – before the _Riven,_ before Darth Jadzira – the act of preparing himself for a meeting with Vector and Miranza would have been something Theron took his time with. Nowadays, however, even the simple act of grooming had become complicated and uncomfortable, and it was something best accomplished quickly and perfunctorily. He threw a towel up over the mirror over his sink, ensuring the reflective surface was covered before he began the rest of his grooming routine. That way he didn’t need to look at his reflection while brushing his teeth, and shaving could be accomplished through the use of a smaller hand-held mirror that could be angled in such a way as to only show parts of his face in small sections. He stripped off his work-day clothes and left them in a pile on the floor, kicking them out into the main room to join the rest of his discarded clothing. His shower was taken with the stall door open; there was a drain installed in the floor of the ‘fresher for just such a reason, for the days and nights when his shower stall felt too small and enclosed with the door shut. When he stepped out, a scant five minutes later, the ‘fresher floor was cold and wet but the air in the ‘fresher was warm and steam curled around him in a way that made everything just a little bit blurry.

He spent far too long contemplating what to wear before settling on a dark pair of trousers and a loose-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt in a rich shade of red that Vector had complimented Theron on some time ago. Dirty pool, perhaps, to dress himself in clothing his lovers liked, but Theron had never been in the habit of playing fair. He had another lengthy debate with himself over the bandages on his hand: the bruises were mostly faded and the cuts long closed, and would it be better to cover the evidence of the damage he’d done to himself or should he just leave it bare? In the end he decided against the bandaging, partly because it felt like too much work and partly because the cuts and bruises were proof-positive of a point he needed to drive home to Vector and Miranza: he was damaged goods and they were better off without him.

Thus attired – he decided against his holster and blaster; he didn’t think it was going to be _that_ kind of meeting – Theron steeled himself and made his way through the base towards Vector and Miranza’s room.

_Our room,_ the message had said. On the surface of it, a simple enough statement. Underneath, however, there were layers of complexity to those two words, and had the message been sent by Vector there would have been even more layers. “Their” room was assigned by Lana in the couples quarters area of the base, and had originally been intended for Vector and Theron (and Miranza, when she returned from Darth Occlus). That had proven complicated; some nights – especially early on – were worse than others, and as much as Theron had appreciated Vector’s support he felt guilty keeping the Joiner awake every night with his tossing and turning, not to mention the nightmares that left him shaking and crying out. Lana had pulled strings to get Theron his own private room while also enabling Vector to keep their original quarters, but it had been some time since Theron had thought of that shared room as “their” room. In his mind it was Vector’s room; now, Vector and Miranza’s. It wasn’t _his,_ and even if the message had come from Vector Theron would have had the excuse of the Joiner’s peculiar speech patterns to explain the use of the plural pronoun.

The door opened before Theron could even lift his hand to knock. Vector stood in the doorway, barefoot and clad in soft sleep pants and a dark blue T-shirt that fit snug across his chest and shoulders. Theron loved that colour on Vector; it was incredibly complimentary to his dark hair and tanned skin. Like Theron Vector appeared to have showered recently and his straight black hair hung damp about his face rather than combed back as was his usual preference. He smiled at Theron in greeting but made no effort to hug or kiss the other man, and Theron’s analytical mind assessed the meaning behind it: the Joiner could be respecting Theron’s need for personal boundaries or, in spite of his warm smile, he could be too disgusted by Theron to want to engage in physical contact.

“Come in,” Vector said softly, standing aside to permit Theron entry.

Theron hesitated long enough that the door tried to close with him still in the doorway, and the motion sensor triggered its reopening with a loud hiss, making him jump. If Vector noticed – and there was no way he could fail to – he said nothing, but Theron felt his cheeks flush anyway. He took a step into the room and the door closed behind him.

Vector and Miranza’s room was lit by dozens of candles rather than by the harsh overhead lights. The warm, flickering glow made the space seem smaller and cozier, and helped disguise the harsh utilitarian feel possessed by all the quarters on the Odessen base. There wasn’t much to the room – a large bed (suitable, Theron suspected, for three people to share), a set of lockers, a dresser and a table but no chairs. Miranza was seated on the edge of the bed, dressed in one of Theron’s old T-shirts, one he’d picked up on a whim in a Nar Shaddaa gift shop, the words “What Happens in Nar Shaddaa Stays in Nar Shaddaa” written across the front in Aurebesh. He only wished that were true.

“Sit,” Vector instructed, gesturing towards the bed. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Theron reflected that only one of those directives might be possible, but he kept the thought to himself, toeing off his boots before moving to sit beside Miranza on the bed. She scooted back, leaving room for him and Vector, and drew up her legs to sit cross-legged.

“So,” Theron began, deciding to treat this meeting like the removal of an adhesive bandage: rip it off quick and get the pain over with, rather than draw it out and draw out the hurt. “What’s up?”

Vector turned away, moving towards the small table and picking up a tray that he brought over to the bed. It was laden with food: bite-sized bits of cheese and meat, chopped raw vegetables and an assortment of crackers. Theron considered briefly which of the two of them had prepared the tray before concluding that it had been Vector; Miranza was the better cook, but she favoured more elaborate fare and didn’t have the patience for putting together finger foods such as this. The kitchens in the Odessen base weren’t designed for the kind of cooking Miranza preferred, and he wondered if she would get an opportunity to show off her skills or if she, like the rest of them, would eat the majority of her meals in the cantina or the cafeteria. Vector offered the tray to Theron and his instinctive response was to refuse on the grounds that he wasn’t hungry, but his stomach chose that opportunity to remind him that lunch – half a sandwich, eaten on the go – had been a very long time ago.

“We suspected you may have skipped dinner,” Vector said quietly, his statement punctuated by the growling of Theron’s stomach.

Miranza accepted the tray from her husband and began stacking slices of meat and cheese onto a cracker, which she then offered to Theron. He accepted – there was no pretending his stomach wasn’t rumbling like crazy – and she sat back with the tray on her lap, looking pleased with herself. Vector climbed up onto the bed beside her, mirroring her cross-legged pose, and for a moment the three of them simply sat and looked at each other, the silence broken only by the soft crunching of the cracker in Theron’s mouth.

It was good. It was all _too_ good, and Theron found himself committing every detail to memory: the savoury bite of the sausage in his mouth, the way the candlelight cast a soft golden glow over Vector’s aristocratic features, how the darkness seemed to obscure the strange serpentine markings on Miranza’s bare arms and legs. If this was to be the end of things he wanted to have all of this memorized, how perfect and beautiful the two of them looked, how good the food tasted, how wonderful it felt to be alone with them even if it was for the last time.

“Before we begin,” Vector said, and Theron couldn’t prevent himself from stiffening a little in anxious anticipation, “we – Miranza and I, that is – need to apologize to you.”

Theron blinked in confusion, swallowing his mouthful of food before saying cleverly, “What?”

“We owe you an apology,” Vector said again. He set his hands on his knees and leaned towards Theron, his expression earnest. “In your absence we spoke of Ryshan. While it was not our intention to share confidential information without your permission or behind your back, we … There was a miscommunication between us, and we did so.”

“Ah. Oh.” Theron’s brain struggled to follow, and he desperately hoped he regained the use of his faculties before more complicated speech was required of him. On the other hand, if more complicated speech involved talking about Ryshan, then perhaps it was for the best that he seemed to be limited to single-syllable filler words. Maybe throw an “um” or an “uh” in there too, for good measure. Unconsciously the fingers of his good hand curled around the sleeve of his shirt, tugging it down over the bruised knuckles of the opposite hand. He was dimly aware of the bruising around his wrists and grateful that his long-sleeved shirt hid the worst of it. He didn’t need the evidence of his betrayal to be on display.

Miranza made an impatient noise. “What Vector is saying is that I told him Ryshan raped you. I thought he already knew.”

“Which we did not,” Vector said quietly, no accusation in his voice. He met Theron’s gaze. “We would like to hear it from you, however.”

Before he knew it Theron was pushing up off the bed, the words “I can’t do this” tumbling from his mouth as he struggled to his feet. He barely had one foot on the ground when he felt strong fingers wrap around his wrist – pressing in right where the bruises from Ryshan’s hands were – and he was tugged back towards the bed. He turned, expecting to find himself in Vector’s grasp, but it was Miranza, her expression hard but sympathy in her eyes.

“Sit. Down,” she ordered him, in a tone of voice that brooked no opposition. She gave a little squeeze of his wrist – Force, she was _strong,_ far stronger than Theron remembered – before releasing him.

Theron sat, perching on the edge of the bed, facing away from the two of them. Behind him Miranza made another impatient noise and then she and Vector were both drawing Theron up onto the bed, away from the edge and in the centre between them. As soon as they had Theron settled the two of them both pulled their hands away from him, and Vector gave Miranza a look that Theron was unable to parse, but that he thought might have been one of censure.

It was then that Theron – his mind searching for a distraction, something that wasn’t talking about Ryshan – noticed the absence of the cast on Miranza’s arm. The candlelight wasn’t sufficient for him to get a good look, but her arm appeared completely mended, with only a faint trace of bruising where the break had been. Barring the use of a kolto tank there was no way an injury such as a broken arm should have healed so quickly.

She caught him staring. A wry smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’m complicated.”

“I see that,” he replied. He remembered Caedan using the exact same phrase in his report following the Jedi’s interrogation of her: _“Subject says ‘I’m complicated’ when asked about her abilities. Subject refuses to elaborate.”_ “More of Darth Occlus’s Sith alchemy?”

“Something like that. I’m not much good to her in the field if it takes me forever to heal up.” Miranza’s tone was evasive, much the way it had sounded earlier, when they had been speaking out in the woods. Theron got the sense that she wanted to talk about it but that she was skirting what she could and could not discuss, and thinking about that – about the fact that she couldn’t talk about certain things – brought to mind another subject that had been troubling him.

“You’re supposed to be immune to mind control,” he said, proud of the way his voice held steady when what he was thinking was _We’re supposed to be immune to mind control._ When the Castellan restraints had been broken, that had been one of the benefits of reprogramming himself: removing the possibility that the restraints could be used against him in the future. The idea had come from her, because she had done the exact same thing herself. He had known Darth Occlus was powerful – the changes wrought to Miranza’s body were proof of that – but if she was powerful enough to override that reprogramming, if she could just waltz in and do whatever she wanted inside his brain …

“Theron,” Miranza said, before his thoughts could spiral any further, speaking in the patient tone of an adult explaining something very simple to an exceedingly slow child, “You don’t need Castellan restraints or Force powers to control someone’s mind. Basic psychology does the trick just fine, if you know what you’re doing. And Darth Occlus …she knows what she’s doing - and I was with her for more than a year.”

_Because of me,_ Theron thought, deliberately curling and uncurling the fingers of his injured hand, feeling the painful pull against bruised and abraded skin.

Vector cleared his throat deliberately, casting an apologetic glance at his wife before turning back to Theron. “Let us table that discussion for another time,” he said, with enough emphasis that Theron knew it would be brought up again whether Miranza wanted it to be or not. “For now, we’re here to discuss you, Theron, and the situation with Ryshan.”

Theron sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “What situation? I fucked up.”

“Tell us about it,” Vector instructed him, voice soft. “What happened, Theron?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Theron replied. He shot an accusing glare at Miranza. “Besides, you said Miranza already told you. What more is there to say?”

“A lot more, actually.” Vector helped himself to a slice of carrot, reaching across Theron to the tray that now sat directly on the bed. “Given that you still seem to consider yourself the one at fault here. Tell us what happened, love.”

It was the “love” that did it, that and the compassionate expressions on both Vector’s and Miranza’s faces. There was no judgment there, just an earnest desire to hear Theron’s side of the story. He scrubbed his hand over his face, fingers brushing over a rough patch of stubble he must have missed while shaving – the perils of using a hand-mirror to see what he was doing – and resettled himself on the bed. When he opened his mouth the story fell out in bits and pieces, with many stops and starts, the words tumbling loose. As he spoke, reciting the events that had transpired between himself and Ryshan, Theron realized how much of that night seemed to be missing, how many of the details were blurred by too much alcohol, with entire passages of time simply gone from memory. He knew he’d been drinking and that he’d had far too much to drink, but as he considered things it occurred to him that Ryshan had been nowhere near as intoxicated, and that so much of what had happened seemed to have been engineered by the pilot. He hadn’t intended to drink that much; he hadn’t intended to get drunk at all, and yet he’d gone well beyond mildly buzzed to the point of blacking out, repeatedly. How many bottles had he and Ryshan killed between the two of them? And how much of that alcohol had Ryshan actually consumed?

Theron kept the details of all the times he and Ryshan had fucked to the bare minimum: it was enough for Vector and Miranza to know that he had cheated, they didn’t need to hear about the different positions or how many times either man had gotten off. (Or that it had hurt, that it _still_ hurt, but Theron suspected they could tell without him having to come out and say it.) As he set it all out, however, he realized that he wasn’t just keeping the details to himself to spare them, he was short on the details because he couldn’t remember them all. There were moments where he remembered being in one position, Ryshan pounding away at him, and then the next thing he recalled he was somewhere else, repositioned elsewhere on the bed, having something else done to him. It was like one of those flip-books, where you flipped through the pages to watch a cartoon play itself out, but some of those pages were missing and you couldn’t see how you got from one point to another.

When he finished speaking his voice was hoarse and his throat was raw, and Vector silently handed him a glass of water that he downed in two huge gulps. Miranza reached out to him, then pulled back, uncertain.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing towards his hand. Theron shrugged, then, seeing that a shrug was not sufficient to count as consent, gave a half-hearted nod. Gently, as if he was made of delicate crystal, Miranza took his hand in hers and, with her free hand, carefully drew back the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the thick band of bruising around his wrist. “There’s more, I assume?”

Theron nodded again, waving his free hand vaguely as if to encompass his entire body. He added dully, “Rysh likes marking his property.”

“You are _not_ his property!” Vector hissed, vehemently enough that Theron flinched away. His expression softened, and the look he gave Theron was heartbreaking in its sympathy and understanding. “Oh, love, we are not angry with you, not in any way. You were taken advantage of, darling. You were raped.”

“Look, it’s not the first time I got a little bruised during –”

“That has _nothing_ to do with it,” Miranza snapped, squeezing his hand tightly in her own.

“Theron, love,” Vector said, tone earnest, “You were drunk. Point of fact, love, you were _blackout drunk,_ and we suspect Ryshan intended it that way, that he endeavoured to have you do the bulk of the imbibing so that you would be intoxicated and unable to fend him off. Even if you had given your consent for what happened between the two of you – and you did _not,_ love – there was no way such consent could be seen as valid. You were incapable of giving consent, and Ryshan intended for that to happen.”

“He got you drunk,” Miranza said bluntly, “so that he could fuck you. Because you’d already said no.” She made a disgusted noise before adding, “I would’ve thought the SIS had better consent training than that.”

“Ryshan’s not –” Theron blinked, then sighed as the meaning of her words sunk in. “Oh. You mean me. That I should know better.”

“Got it in one,” Miranza replied. “Well. In two. Eventually.” She glanced at Vector before murmuring, “Now, what to do with Ryshan …?”

Theron let out an explosive sigh. The idea of going after Ryshan exhausted and terrified him at the same time. He didn’t have the energy, emotionally or physically, to deal with the pilot, and he didn’t trust that Ryshan wouldn’t find a way to twist things to his benefit if Miranza or Vector went after him without Theron. “Just … Just leave it, okay? I just want to forget about him and move on.”

“But it’d be easy to find him,” Miranza protested. “Kaliyo will know where he is. We could track him down and –”

“Just drop it, Miri.” Reluctantly Miranza nodded, although Theron suspected that topic was far from over.

“May we?” Vector asked, reaching for Theron’s free hand, the one not already held by Miranza. Dazedly Theron nodded, and Vector took his hand in his own, mindful of Theron’s injuries. His thumb stroked gently over Theron’s palm. “Love, we’re not angry with you, not in any way, shape or form. There was no betrayal on your part, no need for guilt or shame. We are not upset with you.”

Theron drew in a shuddering breath, aware of the painful tightness in his chest and the burning in his eyes. Both Vector and Miranza squeezed his hands in their own, although Vector did so with more caution, careful to avoid putting pressure on any of the healing bruises. Theron wanted to pull one of his hands away so that he could wipe at the sudden dampness in his eyes, but he didn’t want to break free of their grasp. After a moment Miranza used her free hand to brush gentle fingertips over his cheeks, clearing away the wet tracks beginning to make their way down his face.

“I thought …” Theron swallowed down a sob before forcing himself to continue, “I thought this was it.”

“What was it?” Vector asked, confused. “What was what?”

“You thought we called you here so we could break up with you?” Miranza asked, incredulous. Theron nodded miserably, and she let out a small sigh, shaking her head. “Theron, you big idiot, we _love_ you.”

As Theron paused for a moment to absorb that statement – one he had heard before, and on a fairly regular basis, in fact, for all that he still struggled to accept it – Vector made another one that struck him just as hard.

“Theron, darling,” he said, still stroking his thumb over Theron’s palm, “While we appreciate that for some couples the subject of infidelity might be something of a deal-breaker, we are _not_ one of those couples.” He chuckled, glancing meaningfully between Theron and Miranza in equal measure before adding dryly, “ _Obviously,_ as we are not a couple at all, but a triad. And while this is a subject we ought to discuss – at length – at a later date, it’s a moot point, as you’ve not been unfaithful. For future reference, however, should you choose to engage in relations with someone other than myself and Miranza” – and there was no mistaking the entirely unsubtle emphasis he placed on the word _choose_ – “we do not foresee it being a deal-breaker for us.”

“Although,” Miranza added thoughtfully, “I wonder if maybe it’s a deal-breaker for you?”

Theron shook his head, staring down at his lap where their hands were joined. Relationships were so _not_ his wheelhouse, and the one he shared with Vector and Miranza somehow managed to be both more and less complicated than what he assumed normal relationships were like. More, because there were three of them rather than the two that was considered the social norm. Less, because there was something infinitely empathetic and open-minded about the two Imperials, some sort of casual acceptance that what they were doing was what worked for them, and the rest of the galaxy could go hang. Was the idea of one of them sleeping with someone else, someone outside their triad, a deal-breaker for Theron? He honestly didn’t know. The part of him that had been raised in Republic space, at the knee of a Jedi Master, had very formal ideas of how relationships were supposed to work – but he was already living outside that accepted norm by virtue of being in a threesome rather than a twosome (and with a couple of Imperials, no less!). At the same time, however, he didn’t feel particularly troubled by the idea of Vector or Miranza sleeping with someone else, and had in fact assumed they had been doing so all along. He just hadn’t seen that openness as extending to himself, for some reason.

“I … don’t know,” he admitted at last. “I really … I haven’t thought about it.”

“Well,” said Miranza, “maybe you should.”

“At a later date,” Vector added. “That discussion, however necessary, can wait. For now, we would far rather focus on what we can do to help you understand that there was no betrayal on your part, we are not unhappy with you – outside of your persistent efforts to punish yourself for this non-existent transgression, of course – and we – both Miranza and I – do love you very, very much.”

“We do, you know.” Miranza twined her fingers through Theron’s, raising his hand to her mouth to brush a kiss over his knuckles. “We love you. I love you.”

Theron swallowed again, nodding. “Force, I know. I _know._ And I love you, I love both of you, but … I really thought I’d fucked up. This is the best thing I’ve ever had, and I thought I’d gone and fucked it all up with Ryshan.” Miranza opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off, giving his head a violent shake. “No, I get it, I hear what you’re saying. Ryshan” – another heavy swallow, the word stuck in his throat until he could force it out – “raped me. I get it, but I … Right now, it’s just words, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll never really believe you. But right now? Right now I’m sitting here and all I can feel is his hands on me, and under that? _Her_ hands, the hands of … of all her fucking flunkies … and … and …” He shuddered, unable to continue, and this time he couldn’t hold back the sob.

“Oh, Theron,” Miranza breathed. “I really, really want to hug you right now. Would that be all right?”

Theron nodded, not trusting himself to speak without bursting into tears, and Miranza released his hand so that she could pull him into her arms. She nestled his head on her shoulder, against the curve of her neck, and when Theron felt Vector’s arms curl around them both that was the moment he lost it and began sobbing in earnest. Someone – he couldn’t tell whether it was Vector or Miranza – began stroking his back and Miranza whispered soothing words into his ear, her breath warm on his cheek. He became aware that one or both of them was crying along with him, and as he let the tears out he realized it wasn’t just this one situation he was sobbing about, but all of it, all of the horrible things that had happened to him on Darth Jadzira’s ship and the year Miranza was gone and what had happened with Ryshan. _All of it._ He knew, as well, that he was crying because he was happy, because Miranza was back and the three of them were together and as fucked-up as he was right now, he could actually envision a time and place in the future where he could perhaps be better, and they with him.

When the tears at last subsided and the three of them disentangled themselves Vector drew back and gave Theron a long, assessing glance. There were tearstains on Vector’s shirt – as well as on Theron’s and Miranza’s – and his eyes were still glistening, but his gaze was direct.

“Take your shirt off, love,” he said softly, adding as an obvious afterthought, “please.”

Theron thought of the bruising around his wrists, the bite on his chest, and all the other marks Ryshan had left behind. Vector had already seen the markings when they were fresh and new, but Miranza had not, and Theron felt oddly ashamed by them. The idea of removing his shirt and exposing the evidence of his – he forcibly reminded himself that it had not been a betrayal, that Vector and Miranza would not have lied to him about something like this, that Ryshan had been in the wrong, not him. After a moment’s hesitation he grabbed the hem of his shirt and drew it off with one quick tug, knowing that if he delayed any further he wouldn’t be able to do it. He expected – well, he didn’t know what he expected, save that it wasn’t for Miranza to let out an angry snarl or for Vector to shush her.

“He did everything but sign his name,” Theron said miserably, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around his chest defensively or find some other way to cover himself.

“You’re beautiful,” Miranza replied, and the reverence in her voice was impossible to dismiss.

“We should very much like to touch you, love,” said Vector. “Would you be comfortable with that?”

“I … uh …” Theron thought about it, taking care to note the anxiety he was feeling, along with an unmistakable twinge of shame that they should see him like this. Then, before he could think too much, he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d … I think I’d like that.”

Vector helped him to lie down, adjusting a couple of pillows under Theron’s head and shoulders so that he was propped up and could see what was happening. He and Miranza curled in on either side of Theron, bodies pressing close but both of them careful to ensure he didn’t feel trapped or restrained. Before either of them touched him more than that, however, Miranza looked him in the eyes.

“The safe word,” Miranza said quietly, “is _mirjahaal.”_ Theron wasn’t familiar with the word, but that wasn’t really the point when it came to choosing safe-words; the point was to pick a word one wasn’t about to scream out in the middle of sex, and in that context _mirjahaal_ certainly qualified. But that implied that this was going to be the kind of touching that required safe-words, and Theron wasn’t really sure he was up for that sort of thing. Even having the two of them so close and knowing that they intended to touch him made his heart speed up a little – and not in the pleasant, _fuck yes I’m going to get laid_ kind of way that he usually felt when in close proximity to Vector and Miranza. On top of that uneasiness was the fact that Ryshan had hurt him and in places that would become painfully obvious once sex was on the table, and Theron was not yet at the point where he could bring _that_ up.

He let out an anxious chuckle. “I’m … uh … I’m not sure I’m ready for that.” He thought about saying _I’m kind of tired now_ or _I have a headache_ or something, _anything_ that wasn’t a variation on revealing that at the moment the idea of having sex terrified him and he was equally afraid that if he said no Miranza or Vector would take it personally. Even after everything they’d said earlier, even after their repeated affirmations of love and acceptance, Theron could still feel that precipice looming, that sense that if he said or did the wrong thing they would close the door on this relationship forever.

“Nothing so adventurous as that,” Vector said, giving Theron a reassuring smile. “You said you could still feel their hands upon you. We wish to change that. We wish for you to feel us instead.”

“The safe-word just gives you more control over the situation,” Miranza added. “You’re nervous and scared. We just want to touch you. If something doesn’t feel right, or if the fear and nervousness are too much, you say _mirjahaal_ and we stop, no questions asked. Okay?”

“O-okay.” Theron had more questions, but he knew if he continued to overthink things he wouldn’t be able to go through with this, so instead he lay back against the pillows and nodded.

“Can we touch you?” Miranza asked.

He nodded, then, sensing she required more consent than that, said in a voice that was surprisingly steady, “Yes, you can touch me.” She returned the nod.

“What is the safe-word?” Vector asked. He had his hands hovering over Theron, close enough that Theron could feel the warmth of him even though they were not yet touching his skin.

_“Mirjahaal.”_ The word felt strange and exotic on his tongue.

“Good,” said Vector. “Do you need to say it?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Excellent,” Vector said, and that one word of praise, combined with the gentle brush of his fingertips over Theron’s cheek, filled Theron with a glowing warmth.

They were gentle, almost unbearably so. To Theron it seemed as though they were mapping his flesh, hands tracing over every line of muscle, every faded scar, every dip and divot and rise. Miranza’s hands were slightly warmer than Vector’s – Theron noted it because normally it was the other way around, normally Vector was the one who ran warm – but they were both warm and soft and careful. He closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the sensation, letting their touches brush away the memories of Ryshan and Darth Jadzira and the Sith lord’s lackeys.

After a few minutes Vector’s breath was against Theron’s ear as he asked, “May we kiss you?”

Theron nodded shakily, and responded with _“mirjahaal”_ when Miranza asked him to repeat the safe-word. When he again confirmed that he didn’t need to say the safe-word, that he was still fine, he felt Vector’s mouth close over his, his lips warm, the kiss unhurried and tender. There was no rushing him, no press of tongue trying to force its way inside his mouth, no teeth nipping at his lower lip, no sense of urgency or force: just a gentle brush of Vector’s lips over Theron’s. In short: it was nothing like Ryshan or Jadzira or any of the other countless individuals who had abused him. It was Vector, the man who loved him and who Theron loved in turn, and it was good. When Vector pulled away Theron made a needy sound, but then Miranza leaned in to kiss him and he felt the amused twist of her lips as they met his. Her kiss was as gentle and patient as Vector’s, although she ended it by lightly licking the tip of her tongue over his bottom lip.

And so it continued like this: Vector and Miranza slowly taking Theron apart touch by gentle touch and kiss by tender kiss, and with each new brush of skin against skin the unpleasant memories of the past year began to fade a little.

Theron relaxed into the mattress, savouring the warmth of the two bodies pressed in on either side of him. The touching gradually became a bit more deliberate, fingers pushing against bruises, and mouths began to wander. He startled a little when Miranza nipped at his jawline, _“mirjahaal”_ rising in the back of his throat, but he was comfortable and warm and safe, and the shape of her mouth against his skin felt nothing like Ryshan’s and so he settled, the safe-word only leaving his lips when one or the other asked him to repeat it.

“Can we take your pants off?” Miranza asked.

Theron considered the question, then nodded, adding cheekily, “But only if you take your clothes off first.” He sucked in a breath, startled by his sudden boldness, then relaxed, thrilled at the realization that he wasn’t joking, he did want the two of them naked beside him. He wasn’t sure how far he was ready to go just yet, but with each new step Miranza or Vector would stop and ask permission first, and every time he said yes they made him repeat the safe-word and then would ask if he needed to use it, and when he told them he didn’t, that he was still fine, they continued. They were the ones doing all the work, and a tiny part of him was reminded of how Ryshan had been the one to maneuver his body into the positions he wanted, or how Darth Jadzira’s flunkies would shove him around until he was doing what they wanted, but that tiny part of him was overshadowed by the knowledge that the safe-word ensured he was the one in control. They acted, but only with his complete and utter approval.

There was no gasp of dismay from Vector when Miranza removed her T-shirt, and Theron realized that she must have already shown him the horrific scarring over her abdomen. He wondered if it had been in preparation for this moment, so that Vector wouldn’t be distracted from what they were doing. It was Miranza who unfastened Theron’s pants, and then she and Vector worked together to guide them down over Theron’s hips, sliding them off until they were discarded on the floor with his T-shirt and their clothes. When they pressed in close again Theron felt the warmth of their bodies, with no clothing to provide a barrier between them.

“Is this okay?” Miranza asked, a touch anxiously. “Are you okay?”

“It’s good,” Theron reassured her. “I’m good. My safe-word is _mirjahaal_ and no, I don’t need to use it.”

She chuckled, kissing him. “Good. _Very_ good. You’re doing so well, darling.”

Theron flushed with pleasure at the praise, a pleasant warmth suffusing his body. If all she did was to lay there beside him and tell him he was a good boy he would have taken it and died happy, but to have her say such things and continue touching him as affectionately as she was doing … well, it really hit all the right buttons. He groaned, his cock beginning to stir to life between his legs. It had been a while, the bullshit with Ryshan notwithstanding, and he was a little afraid his erection wouldn’t last. Getting aroused and staying aroused had been a struggle this past year, one that he had honestly expected would eventually drive Vector away.

_Don’t overthink it,_ he told himself sternly, losing himself in another kiss.

It was Vector who instigated the more sexual touching, starting with Theron’s nipples. As before, each level of progression began with the Joiner or Miranza asking permission first, and then at Theron’s enthusiastic consent – and confirmation of his safe-word – they continued. Vector brushed the pad of his thumb over Theron’s nipple, then kissed it, Miranza mirroring him on Theron’s other side. Before long Theron was gasping and needy, and his cock was beginning to ache from how rock-hard it was.

“May we stroke you?” Vector asked, and Theron was so ready for that he practically begged him.

Theron watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Vector licked the palm of his hand and then curled it around Theron’s cock, fingers closing in a tight grasp that took Theron’s breath away. As Vector began to stroke Theron’s length Miranza’s hand brushed over his balls, her touch so soft and light at first that he wasn’t entirely sure what he was feeling. The two of them worked together, stroking and caressing, and every now and again one or the other would lean down to kiss Theron breathless. His hips jerked before he forced himself to just keep still and enjoy the attentions, and when he yearned for more pressure Vector was happy to oblige, grip tightening, hand working harder and faster along Theron’s shaft.

“Can I suck your dick?” Miranza asked. Theron’s eyes flew open – he hadn’t realized he’d closed them again – and he let out a startled laugh at the bluntness of her question.

“What’s the point in having a safe-word if we’re just going to be playing _Mother, May I_ every five minutes?” he asked, the laughter still in his voice.

Both Miranza and Vector drew away, although not so far that they weren’t still pressed in close against him. He missed the sensation of hands over his crotch and seriously regretted asking the question in the first place, but it seemed strange to him that they should decide upon using a safe-word – which to him suggested that they should just be doing what they wanted until he used the safe-word to stop them – only to keep checking in with him every few minutes.

“The point,” Miranza said, as Vector resumed casually stroking Theron’s cock, “is we’re giving you as much control over this as we can. If we ask and you say no, we can find out why and what you’d rather we be doing instead.” Theron was pleased to realize that thus far he had acquiesced to every request they’d made, and not because he’d felt like he had to do so. “If we just do something and it upsets you and you have to safe-word out of it, well, that’s not as beneficial. Make sense?”

Theron nodded. Her words did have a certain logic to them, although with Vector’s hand doing _that_ he was having a hard time concentrating. It was one thing to know in advance what they intended to do and to decide for himself whether or not it would be something he currently felt comfortable with. He wasn’t sure what would happen or how he would react if they did something he didn’t like and he had to use the safe-word to end it.

“All right, then.” Miranza gave him a wicked smile that went straight to his crotch. “Now, Mother, may I suck your cock?”

Theron let out a helpless bark of laughter which swiftly turned into a long, drawn-out groan when Vector’s hand gave an expert twist.

_“Fuck,_ yes,” he said, once he remembered how to form words again. “Yes, you can … please, for the love of the Force, suck my cock – and don’t _ever_ say that again, because that is so, _so_ wrong.”

“Good-wrong or bad-wrong?” Miranza asked, and the way his dick was bobbing in response – either to the sound of her voice or the fact that her breath was hot against his cock – he honestly wasn’t sure of the answer. The best he could do was to groan, which was probably answer enough.

Miranza’s mouth engulfed Theron’s cock and he gasped, hips bucking upwards in an attempt to fuck her face. Vector kissed him, swallowing his gasps and moans, and he felt firm hands pressing down on his thighs, holding his legs open so that Miranza could fit herself between them and have better access to work. She released him only to run her tongue up and down his length, teasing the tip of her tongue over his crown before once more swallowing him whole. Her head bobbed, her mouth making wet, filthy sounds, and he fought the urge to tangle his fingers in her hair and guide her movements. Before he could move, however, Vector’s strong fingers were curling around his wrists, pinning Theron’s hands up over his head. As before when Miranza had bit him Theron felt a brief twinge of panic at being restrained, but then the reassurance of his safe-word and the surety that Vector would release him the instant he uttered it made him hold back, secure in the knowledge that he was safe here and his partners absolutely _would_ honour his consent. Vector’s hands tightened, enough for it to hurt just a little bit, and Miranza picked up the pace, the sloppy wet sounds increasing, echoing in the room alongside Theron’s increasingly desperate gasps and moans.

He was close, he was _so close,_ and then Vector was kissing him again, licking inside his mouth, and he was returning the kiss eagerly, shifting his hands so that he could feel the pressure of Vector’s fingers around his wrists. His hips bucked and Miranza made a humming sound that reverberated all along his length. Vector broke off the kiss long enough to murmur “You’re so good” in Theron’s ear and that was it, that was all it took. Theron’s vision whited out and he came with a hoarse cry, spilling down Miranza’s throat.

Theron seemed to drift after that, nestled between two warm bodies, Miranza’s leg thrown over his and Vector’s arm draped across his waist. He offered, weakly, his voice gone husky from crying out, to return the favour but both Vector and Miranza waved him off, both of them content to simply snuggle up against him. He was dimly aware of Vector tugging a blanket up over all three of them, and then Theron closed his eyes, feeling a delicious lassitude sweeping over him.

Just before he drifted off he remembered Vector telling him he was good and realized Ryshan had said those exact same words, and as he fell asleep he smiled at the understanding that it wasn’t the same thing at all.

O o O o O

That night Theron slept between Vector and Miranza again, and while he slept well it would be a lie to say that he slept perfectly. He had nightmares, Miranza had nightmares, and although the Joiner hid it well Theron was fairly certain that Vector had nightmares, too. Still, it was better than sleeping alone, and there was a rightness about waking up between them that set Theron’s heart at ease.

When he went back to his own room to shower the first thing he did when he got inside the ‘fresher was to pull the towel down from his mirror. It took Theron an embarrassingly long time to look at his own reflection in the glass, but there was no one there to witness it and call him on his cowardice. He gave himself as long as he needed before steeling his resolve and meeting his eyes in the mirror. Naked in preparation for his shower, Theron’s reflection was pale and still too thin, but he was pleased to note that he did appear to be regaining some of the weight and muscle mass he had lost while in Darth Jadzira’s custody. His hair was dishevelled and he was once again in need of a shave.

His gaze was drawn downwards, to his chest. The bite mark Ryshan had left behind had changed shape, and Theron realized that the bruising no longer looked as it had after he’d returned from Breaktown. Instead he could see smaller nips in his skin, bruises that covered Ryshan’s bite and made the mark into something else entirely. He looked at the other marks from that night and saw the same thing: the bruising around his wrists was different, as was the hickey on his neck. In fact, every bite or bruise Ryshan had made appeared to have been completely overwritten and he realized that for the first time in a long time he could no longer picture unwanted hands on his body. Instead, each bite made him think of Miranza or Vector, each bruise had come from _their_ hands, from _their_ mouths, from _their_ touch. They had taken the damaged canvas of Theron’s body and painted it in their own colours.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.

Much later Theron and Miranza were alone on the rocky out-cropping that overlooked the river. Theron was meditating – or trying to meditate, his mind running in a closed loop – and Miranza was putting herself through a series of increasingly challenging floor exercises, most of which seemed to involve finding some new and interesting way to contort her body around itself. (Those contortions had as much to do with Theron’s distraction as his endlessly-cycling thoughts about what had happened between the three of them.) As he watched her, admiring the strong lines of her body, it occurred to him that he had never asked what language their safe-word had been in or what it meant. Miranza smiled at him.

“It’s Mando’a. It means ‘healing.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter gets its title from Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I'm particularly fond of the Jeff Buckley cover, but Rufus Wainwright does a fantastic version (which is on the soundtrack to the first _Shrek_ movie) as well. Also, in case you feel like getting chills, here's Rufus Wainwright performing Hallelujah with a choir of 1500 people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4
> 
> As a general rule I am not a fan of the "sexual healing" trope, and I don't want to give the impression that good sex fixes everything and everyone. That being said, I'm writing fiction, and my characters are allowed to be happy every now and again. Also - and this is important - there is no such thing as the "perfect victim." If you or a loved one have suffered a trauma, you're allowed to respond to it in whatever way you need in order to be able to recover. You're not beholden to anyone else's ideas of how a victim should or should not behave. Recovery means whatever you need it to mean, whether that involves shying away from sex for a while or engaging in all the safe, consensual sex you want, or if it means learning krav maga or taking up knitting or writing a lot of angsty, whump-filled fanfiction with an improbable number of concussions, then you do you. So long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong.
> 
> Shout-outs to everyone who tried (without knowing exactly what I was up to!) to come up with the Mando'a safe-word I used in this chapter. Cinlat was the one who suggested (among an amazing list of other ideas) _"mirjahaal,"_ which means "peace of mind, _healing,_ general term for emotional well-being especially after a trauma or bereavement." Apologies to anyone who thinks it's inappropriate for my three non-Mandalorian characters to use the Mando'a language to source a safe-word (but I kinda think Rekka and Barrazhat would get a kick out of it if they knew).


	42. Welcome to the New Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Outlander leads a team to take down one of the Star Fortresses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look who's back! It's only been, what ... *checks publishing dates* seven months ... As a token of apology, please accept this super-long, kinda action-packed chapter. :D

_**Nar Shaddaa, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“Man, that’s high.” Koth Vortena took a few steps back, tilting his head to look up, up, _way_ up. “Isn’t all the blood rushing to your head right now?”

Theron Shan’s voice, crackling over the comms, was dryly sarcastic. _“Thanks for reminding me, Three. I hadn’t noticed.”_

Caedan Savarr, his own neck craned as he looked upwards, let out a soft chuckle, then lowered his gaze so that he could calmly sweep their surroundings. So far no one outside of their little group had taken an interest in their activities, and the hustle and bustle of Nar Shaddaa moved around them without interruption. Up above – way, way up above – Theron dangled by his knees from a floating advertisement, hanging upside-down over the promenade. Down on the ground Caedan, Koth and the two Imperials were spread out; while Caedan and Koth couldn’t help looking up every now and again, neither Vector Hyllus nor Miranza Gerrick seemed terribly perturbed by the fact that their partner was performing aerial acrobatics without a harness or a safety net. They didn’t even look up at Theron, just kept their eyes fixed on the crowd around them, alert to any possible threats at ground-level.

There was an abrupt burst of static over the comms. _“Ow. Fuck.”_

“Not right now, darling, we have a headache,” Vector replied drolly. Miranza snorted, but then added, in a far more solicitous tone than her husband had used, “Are you all right, Two?”

_“I’m fine,”_ Theron muttered. _“Just zapped myself on some wiring. You in place, Five? I’m ready to knock.”_

Koth and Caedan did another sweep of the area while Miranza sidled up to the nearby terminal, Vector close at her side. As she faced the computer bank Vector stood with his back to her, looking casual but alert as he scanned the crowd around them. As before, no one paid them any heed; a cluster of humans – or near-humans, in Vector’s case – did not draw much interest on Nar Shaddaa. And outside of their group, no one looked up: the floating neon billboards were so ubiquitous that most people scarcely even registered their presence. (Which rather defeated the purpose, in Caedan’s opinion, but was at least useful here.) Theron, his body hidden behind the casino advertisement, would have to do something a lot more interesting than just hang there before anyone paid any attention to him.

“Ready, Aurek Two,” Miranza said. She had moved far enough away from Caedan that her voice came more clearly through the comm.

_“Knock, knock,”_ said Theron, and Miranza bent her head over the terminal, her fingers flying as she sliced the system. Caedan couldn’t even pretend to know what she and the former SIS agent were doing, save that whatever it was, the two of them were doing it in tandem, Miranza working on the ground-level terminal while Theron sliced into the billboard’s feed. Theron was the better slicer, which was why he was the one hanging from the floating advertisement, but in this case “better” appeared to be a negligible difference so far as Caedan could tell: Miranza’s movements were quick and deft, her attention wholly focused on the screen in front of her. She was good, better than Kira, better than Doc, better – perhaps – than even Teeseven. Caedan felt a brief pang of nostalgia and longing and quickly suppressed it; now was not the time to moon over the “good old days” or dwell on his missing friends. At least Teeseven was safe back on Odessen.

Koth slipped away from the group, taking up a new position near the hatch that led into the service tunnels nearby. Those tunnels provided access to the Sun Generator station that fed the shields and weapons array for the Star Fortress that loomed over Nar Shaddaa. With any luck Theron and Miranza would be able to slice the station’s security system, allowing their team to get inside the station where they could shut those shields and weapons down, and possibly even power down the Star Fortress itself. And in the event that it wasn’t possible to shut the Star Fortress down remotely, Senya Tirall had a small shuttlecraft waiting, ready with a team to board the fortress and take it down via the old-fashioned route. Caedan hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to bring in Senya and her team; as much as he hated the idea of endangering Theron and the others, at least he could minimize the danger to all of them if they worked together. Senya’s crew were on their own.

“Green light,” Koth said softly, bending to prop open the sliced hatch.

_“All clear?”_

“Affirmative, Two,” said Miranza. She stepped away from the terminal and glanced around quickly before looking up at Theron. “You can come down now.”

_“Wilco.”_

Caedan, moving to join Koth over by the access hatch, looked up in time to see Theron flip himself right-side-up, casually dangling from the support beam of the floating billboard. The former spy let go of the beam with one hand and Caedan held his breath, watching the other man hang one-handed from the billboard as if it was the easiest thing in the galaxy to be several hundred feet above ground with no safety net below him. Caedan spared a brief glance toward Vector, noting that now the Joiner seemed a bit more focused on what Theron was doing even if his expression gave no indication as to how concerned he felt. Looking up again, Caedan watched as Theron locked a grappling line into place and then, as if intending to put on a good show for his audience below, released his grip on the support beam. He free-fell for a few feet before the line caught and he rappelled down the rest of the way, landing on steady feet on the promenade.

“Show-off,” Vector murmured as Theron came over to join them. The SIS agent spared him a small smile and rolled his left shoulder, grimacing slightly as he stretched it out. Miranza was on him in an instant, medkit and medi-scanner in hand despite his protests that he was fine. Caedan just stood back and observed, amused in spite of himself at how quickly the two Imperials went from focused and nonchalant to “brooding mother-hens” the instant Theron appeared to be in any distress.

Once Theron was seen to – apparently the concern was that his acrobatics might have aggravated a pre-existing shoulder injury, but he really _was_ fine – the three of them joined Koth and Caedan by the access hatch. Caedan took point, his unlit lightsaber in hand as he made his way into the service tunnel. It was dark, the tunnel lit only by low red emergency lighting, and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. The tunnel was narrow, only wide enough to permit two men to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, and the ceiling was low enough that Caedan and Vector very nearly had to stoop. The access wasn’t intended for pedestrian traffic but rather for service personnel to provide maintenance to the station, and the comfort of said personnel was clearly not a high priority.

“Kinda cozy in here, huh?” Koth commented as the five of them clustered together to study the datapad Theron produced. Theron called up the station schematics and zeroed in on the map of the tunnels; Caedan didn’t know where the map had come from or how they had acquired it, but he suspected his team hadn’t gone through any legal channels. He felt a nagging sense of guilt at how little this realization bothered him; once upon a time he would have been appalled at the idea of using espionage, theft and criminal contacts to track down a target. Nowadays – ever since waking up in Arcann’s vault, Lana’s anxious face staring back at him and five years of his life just _gone_ – such a thing was pretty much standard procedure.

“Not a fan of enclosed spaces?” Theron asked, arching an eyebrow in Koth’s direction.

Koth gave a noncommittal shrug, but Caedan had to repress a small shiver. He wasn’t claustrophobic, exactly, but five years trapped in carbonite had given him a strong appreciation for how distinctly uncomfortable tight, enclosed spaces made him. He would be glad to get this operation over and done with.

“Okay, shields and weapons systems are here,” Theron said, pointing to the corresponding area on his datapad map.

“Did we ever get a rundown on the terminal security?” Koth asked, frowning slightly.

Theron and Miranza exchanged glances. Try as he might, Caedan found that he couldn’t read them, both spies hiding whatever they were thinking and feeling behind carefully constructed masks of professional unconcern. Nonetheless he had the distinct impression that whatever they were communicating, it was nothing good.

“Yes,” Miranza said finally, when it became obvious Koth was still waiting on a response. “I’ll handle it.”

Vector let out a small huff of disapproval but said nothing. His own expression was studiously blank, and Caedan couldn’t read anything in his strange all-black eyes.

“Grrrrreat,” Koth muttered, laying on the sarcasm.

With a small shrug Theron tucked the datapad back inside one of his jacket pockets, signalling the end of their rendezvous and any further discussion. Caedan took up point again just as Miranza disappeared, vanishing from sight as quickly and easily as she had produced – and then concealed – one of her daggers back in that makeshift cargo crate prison not so long ago. The fact that she could just do that – make herself disappear and reappear at will – without the aid of a stealth generator was intensely disconcerting to Caedan, all the more so because as far as he could tell she did it without calling on the aid of the Force. He had known Jedi who could vanish like that, but their abilities called on using Force tricks to make people ignore them or to otherwise conceal their presence. Miranza was Force-blind; she couldn’t possibly be using Jedi mind-tricks or other such abilities. It shouldn’t be possible for her to do such things unaided, and yet … she did them, all the same.

Trusting that Miranza was sticking with the team (he might not trust her personally, but Caedan had faith that she wasn’t about to leave Theron or Vector in the lurch), Caedan headed in the direction Theron had indicated, the map of the station emblazoned inside his mind. The others followed in single file behind him, Koth and Theron in the middle with Vector guarding their rear. All of them were armed: Caedan had his lightsaber, Koth with his blaster rifle, Theron with a pair of pistols and Vector with his electrostaff. In the event of a close-quarters fight Theron and Koth would be at something of a disadvantage, which was why they were flanked by Vector and Caedan; ideally they wouldn’t run into any trouble, but Caedan knew better than to expect ideal circumstances.

They were about fifty feet into the tunnel when Theron paused and held up one hand, fingers closed in a fist to indicate that they should stop. Caedan turned to see the other man standing with his eyes closed, head tilted slightly as if he was listening to something further down the tunnel. He realized Theron was using his implants, either the enhancements to his hearing or some kind of proximity sensor, to scout ahead and that something had caught his attention. Before anyone could ask what was going on Theron’s expression cleared and he opened his eyes again.

“Never mind,” he said tersely. “Five took care of it.”

“Took care of what?” Koth asked, but that question was soon answered as they continued on their way and found a pair of deactivated sentry droids sparking on the ground. Both droids had neat little slices in their armour-plating, right where the core processors would be located. Caedan hadn’t heard a thing.

Vector and Theron exchanged glances, and Theron said, “Like she said, she’ll handle it.”

“This was not what I meant!” Koth protested, with an expression that suggested he wanted to throw his hands in the air in disgust but couldn’t because of the rifle he kept at the ready. “I meant –”

“We know what you meant,” Theron interrupted him. Another glance exchanged between Theron and Vector, and Theron added, “She’ll handle that, too. She knows what she’s doing.”

Koth nudged one of the droids with the toe of his boot, looking mutinous. “I damn sure hope so!”

Caedan felt somewhat confused by their interaction, but elected not to say anything. His knowledge of security systems and infiltration was extremely limited, which was part and parcel of why he’d requested Theron and Miranza’s involvement. Clearly Koth had some deeper understanding of what their operation entailed and he wasn’t pleased with how Miranza chose to handle it, but Caedan had to believe that the former Cipher agent wouldn’t knowingly endanger her two partners or jeopardize the mission. Whatever it was that Miranza was supposedly “handling,” Caedan had to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Now that they had confirmation that there was security down in the maintenance tunnel – not that this came as much of a surprise to anyone – the team was on high alert. Theron, with his greater understanding of the tunnel’s security features, took up a position to Caedan’s left, moving them forward at a slower pace as he scanned for traps. If there were any, Caedan saw no indication, although there were some places where Theron paused and scanned more intently. Whatever the former SIS operative found, it only gave him temporary pause, and Caedan suspected that in addition to clearing out potential enemies Miranza had also been disabling any traps or alarms she came across.

Hesitating for a moment to stare down at yet another dismantled droid, Caedan sighed and shook his head. This was supposedly his operation, and yet he was feeling … well, distinctly superfluous. It was a strange feeling: as a Jedi, Caedan was far more accustomed to being the exceptional member of the team.

Granted, on a team that included a Killik Joiner, a Jedi-trained spy and a … whatever-the-Force Miranza Gerrick was … maybe it was a feeling he should get used to. Koth, at least, was just an ordinary human. Highly skilled and exceptionally well-trained, yes, but still, at his core: human. No implants, no enhancements or augmentations, no Force, no … _whatever._ Caedan was getting a new appreciation for how Doc and Rusk must have felt, all the time they’d been working with him, Kira and Lord Scourge. It couldn’t have been easy, hanging out with two Jedi and the former Emperor’s Wrath. If he’d had any idea where in the galaxy the rest of his old teammates were, Caedan would’ve written them all a formal letter of apology. _Dear Archie, I apologize for all of the times my Jedi-ness must have made you feel inferior …_

“Your girl’s some kinda wrecking ball,” Koth commented, stepping around a still-smoking sentry droid and giving its sparking remains a wide berth. “Nice as it’s been to stretch my legs, I’m not really sure what the rest of us are supposed to be doing here. Seems to me like Aurek Five could handle this whole op all by her lonesome.” He sounded annoyed, and Caedan couldn’t say that he blamed him, not when Koth’s words more or less echoed his own thoughts on the matter.

“We appreciate the backup,” Vector said quietly. He paused, head turning as he listened for something behind him, body going tense before relaxing again.

“Sure you do.” Once again Koth made no effort to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

Both Theron and Vector opened their mouths to reply, but Caedan held his hand up, cutting them off with a tired “Enough!” He glared at the three men before pointedly turning his back to them all and continuing down the passage.

A few short, silent minutes later the tunnel opened up into a larger area filled with computer banks – and another pile of scrapped droids. Standing in the centre of the room, her back to the entrance and her hands flying over the command terminal, was Miranza. She cast a glance towards the doorway before returning her attention to the terminal.

“Nice of you to show up,” she said. “Nex— _Aurek_ Two,” she corrected herself, “Do you have the clearance keys?”

Theron headed into the room, already digging around in his jacket pockets for the right keys. He ignored the deactivated droids, stepping around them to stand at Miranza’s side. For a moment the two of them surveyed the computer terminal, Theron handing the clearance keys over to Miranza and waiting for her to finish a few more lines of coding. Koth, seeing the pile of broken, sparking droids, swung his blaster rifle up onto his back and threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of defeat. Vector remained in the doorway, his attention focused on their exit, hyper-alert to possible intruders.

For his part Caedan chose to step in closer to the two spies, interested in what they were doing even if he didn’t quite understand the technicalities of it all. Most of the time he dealt with inconvenient security systems by slashing through them with his lightsaber, but he knew that wouldn’t be an option here. On the plus side, this gave him an excuse to observe Theron in his natural setting: out in the field, instead of stuck at Alliance Command buried under a pile of paperwork and datapads. With everyone else distracted by one thing or another – Koth with his hissy-fit, Vector with his guard-duty, and Miranza and Theron with slicing the system – he could just stand back and enjoy the show.

And what a show it was! Back on Odessen, Theron had been quiet and distant and far too busy to spend any time with Caedan – or at least, any time that didn’t involve Caedan in his role as Alliance Commander. The SIS agent had changed a lot since their time on Ziost, and Caedan was anxious to get to know this new man – even if those changes included his relationship status. Caedan was pretty sure Theron had been single on Ziost; at least, he hadn’t mentioned any partners (he certainly hadn’t mentioned shacking up with a pair of Imperial spies!). Now, though, Theron was most definitely _not_ single, and while that certainly put a damper in Caedan’s romantic prospects that didn’t bar the door against the two of them being friends. They’d been on a path towards friendship on Ziost, and even if that path couldn’t go any further now Caedan thought it was still a road he’d like to travel for at least some of the way.

He could pine in private. He’d done it before, and it hadn’t had any impact on _those_ friendships.

_Bad Jedi,_ Caedan thought, making no effort whatsoever to lift his gaze from Theron Shan’s backside. It was a nice backside, very firm. He’d never gone in much for the traditional Jedi celibacy and asceticism. He sacrificed enough of himself in saving the galaxy; he was allowed to appreciate the finer things in life. Like Theron’s ass, or the way the other man’s smile lit up the room.

_You’re one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy,_ purred an entirely unwelcome voice in the back of Caedan’s mind. _If you want him, you should just take him._

_Piss off,_ Caedan thought back at Valkorion, even as the dead emperor’s words conjured up mental images of all the different ways he could be _taking_ Theron Shan. Cheeks flushing, he forced himself to look away from Theron, pinning his gaze on the heap of durasteel and circuitry on the ground. His eyes drifted to the marks scoured into the droids’ armour-plating, lines of vicious slashes almost surgical in their precision. Slowly, without consciously intending to do so, he found himself looking at Miranza: the source of those precise, vicious marks.

_She will need to be eliminated,_ Valkorion informed him, and Caedan could feel the menace wafting from the Force-ghost inside his mind. For a moment that malevolent presence coiled around inside Caedan, settling into a jealous anger that grew the longer he stared at the Imperial spy. Something about Valkorion’s interest stirred up a vague memory in Caedan: Ziost, more than six years earlier, when he had teamed up with Theron and the Sixth Line in an effort to find out what was going on on the Sith planet. He remembered a woman’s voice speaking out over the loudspeakers, her crisp Kaasian accent echoing across the planet: _“I found something. A large weapon, here in the middle of everything. I’m going to use it to destroy you.”_ Caedan hadn’t known her at the time, but now he recognized that voice as belonging to Miranza, and it caused another surge of jealous anger to ripple through him.

It was the jealousy that caught Caedan’s attention – he’d felt it before, of course, much as any other person would feel, but never to such a degree. Never with such spite. And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that that emotion was not his own, that for whatever reason Valkorion loathed Miranza and saw Theron – or rather, Caedan stealing Theron away from her – as a means to an end. She’d taken Vitiate’s assured victory away from him, made it smaller and less complete; Vitiate - now Valkorion - wanted to take something away from her in response. Theron was just a convenient target, no doubt amplified by Caedan’s infatuation.

Caedan spun around on his heel, tearing his gaze away from Miranza by the simple expedient of closing his eyes and putting his back to her. When he opened his eyes again Valkorion was gone, back to wherever private part of Caedan’s mind he inhabited when he wasn’t making a nuisance of himself, and both Vector and Koth were casting concerned looks in his direction.

“Valkorion really hates your guts, Aurek Five,” he said finally, rubbing a gloved hand over his face. He could feel a headache building behind his eyes, no doubt courtesy of the intruder inside his mind.

Behind him Miranza let out a soft chuckle, although when she spoke she sounded distracted: “Really? Aren’t you the one who killed him … twice?” Koth made a small choking sound.

“Good times,” Caedan replied around a particularly vicious smile that he sincerely hoped Valkorion could sense. There was no response from his unwelcome passenger.

Everyone fell silent again, and Caedan permitted himself to turn back around so that he could see what Theron and Miranza were doing – although from where he stood it didn’t seem to be anything interesting, just the two of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the terminal. He couldn’t even see the screen or the keypads, both of which were blocked by their bodies. Once again he found himself wondering why it had been necessary for him and the others to come along; clearly, Miranza and Theron could’ve handled this on their own. He could have just stayed on the ship, as part of Senya’s assault team.

_Better view down here, though,_ he thought, then mentally slapped himself. Ogling their boyfriend – husband? partner? – was not going to endear him to the two Imperials. And before Valkorion could comment on that particular sentiment Caedan sent a preemptive _Shut up!_ in the Force-ghost’s “direction.” He thought – but he couldn’t be completely certain – that he heard a ripple of mocking laughter coming from within his own mind, but he chose to ignore it. Let the former Sith Emperor think what he wanted; Caedan wasn’t the sort of asshole who went after a taken man, nor did he see Theron as his due reward for saving the galaxy. The agent wasn’t a prize to be won, no matter what Valkorion seemed to think.

Frankly, it said a lot about Valkorion’s courtship of Senya, if this was the way he approached romantic affairs. _That_ was one relationship Caedan still couldn’t wrap his mind around.

“Ah, shit.”

Caedan’s head snapped up at Theron’s words, although the other man sounded more resigned than upset. Behind him Vector took a few steps into the room, and Koth shifted restlessly, slipping his rifle off his back to hold at the ready.

“Everything okay?” Koth asked, his disgruntlement apparently forgotten for the time being.

Theron shot the Zakuulan a rueful glance before turning back to the computer terminal. “Remember how you were asking about terminal security earlier?”

“Yeeeees?” Koth sounded wary. “I also remember Aurek Five saying she would handle it.”

“Ugh, it’s the syndicate all over again,” Theron muttered, voice pitched low. Miranza murmured an assent. Caedan had the impression that this side-conversation had nothing to do with the rest of them, that it was Theron and Miranza speaking to each other in some kind of shorthand, the way most couples did after they’d been together long enough. Another quickly-squashed ripple of jealousy flickered through him, Valkorion’s enmity once more rearing its ugly head.

“What’s the what?” said Koth, as Vector moved in until he was standing between the Zakuulan and Caedan. Although Caedan often found the Joiner difficult to read there was no mistaking the concern written across the older man’s face now.

Theron turned away from the terminal, gaze darting from Caedan to Koth and then back again. He looked … not _worried,_ exactly, but certainly concerned. Beside him Miranza remained focused on the terminal, her head bent as she stared at the screen. Her hands had stilled, resting on the keypad.

“All right,” Theron said, clapping his hands together like a Huttball coach getting ready to give his team a pep talk, “Here’s the deal. We’ve come across this kind of terminal security before and it … well, it wasn’t good.” Vector snorted but said nothing, and Theron continued, “Fried my implants and knocked me out. I’ve looked at similar systems since then and from what I can tell the shock or the pulse or whatever it was that hit me –”

“ _That_ sounds wonderfully technical,” Koth said in an aside.

“—would’ve knocked out any humanoid slicer,” Theron went on. “And droids would’ve had their entire systems shut down, so Teeseven and Toovee wouldn’t be much help here, either.”

“So what’s the plan?” asked Koth. Caedan nodded, looking between the two spies. “You do have a plan, right?”

Theron graced them all with a beatific smile. “Of course we have a plan.” He turned and jerked a thumb in Miranza’s direction, and Vector folded his arms across his chest, looking distinctly unimpressed. “She’s the plan. She can slice the system. I can talk her through it.”

“Um … okay.” Koth raised his hand in the air like a padawan in the creche. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but … she’s human. She _is_ human, right?” He turned to Miranza. “You _are_ human?”

“I’m –” Miranza began, but Caedan cut her off with a sigh, “Complicated, yes, we know.” She glared at him but said nothing further before turning back to the terminal.

“This is why we needed the backup,” Theron said, drawing attention back to himself. “There’s a high probability –”

“Eighty-seven-point-two-five percent,” Vector supplied, scowling.

“A high probability,” Theron continued, glaring at his partner, “that slicing the system will trigger alarms in addition to the shocks. Miri – _Five_ can work through the shocks –”

“We _think,”_ Vector interrupted again, scowl deepening.

“—and I’ll be busy talking her through it, which means the three of you will need to keep security off our backs.” Theron bit his lip and turned to Koth, adding quietly, “And with Five out of commission you’re the closest thing we have to a medic.”

“What do you mean, ‘out of …’” Koth’s voice trailed off as understanding dawned, and he shot a horrified look in Miranza’s direction. “Shit. _Shit._ So that’s our brilliant plan? You’re just gonna electrocute yourself and somehow – somehow – this’ll all work out for the best?”

Miranza shrugged. Out of everyone in the room she seemed the least concerned, but Caedan found her next to impossible to read. “That’s the plan.”

“Wait!” Caedan said, hand raised to ward her off. This was ridiculous; he was supposed to be the one taking point, the one putting himself on the line here. “I’m a Jedi, I should be the one to –”

“Do you know how to slice a terminal? How to slice _anything?”_

Caedan’s shoulders slumped. “No.”

Another shrug. “Then it’s Theron or me, and we already know his implants will short out on the first shock.” Then, without waiting for further response, Miranza turned back to the terminal and began keying in commands. Theron, arms folded across his chest, took up his position beside her but kept about a foot of distance away from both her and the terminal itself.

Caedan turned away from the two of them and looked towards Vector, expecting the other man to be prepared to intervene or shut the entire operation down – but instead, Vector had resumed his vigil over the doorway, his electrostaff spinning in idle circles in his hands. Koth shot Caedan a look that could be best interpreted as _“Are they for real?”_ before once again unslinging his blaster rifle and moving to the other side of the terminal, where he had a clear line of sight on both the main entrance and a secondary access point that they hadn’t yet explored. Caedan sighed and drew his lightsaber, igniting the blade in a flash of blue light before coming to stand between the two spies and the entrance.

Caedan knew the trap had been triggered the moment he heard a muffled hiss from behind him, but he kept his gaze focused on the entrance even as Vector went tense. Theron murmured something too quiet for Caedan to hear, but his tone was soothing and reassuring, and Caedan could hear clicks on the keypad and knew that whatever was happening, Miranza was continuing her slicing attempt.

Blue light filled the hallway beyond the entrance point as shielded droids began descending upon their location. Vector, electrostaff little more than a blur of motion, stepped directly into the entrance, doing his best to block access to the room. Caedan fought the urge to move in to join him; there wasn’t enough room for them both to fight, and he would need to take down any assailants that made it past the Joiner and Koth. Behind him he could hear blaster fire as Koth dealt with the droids that came from the opposite direction.

Two droids made it past Vector and Koth. Caedan burst into action.

Truth be told, it felt _good_ to be able to cut loose.

Caedan’s blade whirred and whizzed, slicing through the air and solid droid durasteel as if both had the same consistency. His own shield flared to life, blocking errant blaster fire. He swept the legs out from under one of the droids before it could get more than a foot past Koth. The second he ran through just as it slipped past him, his lightsaber erupting from the droid’s chest-plate before slicing it in half down the middle.

The world narrowed to only what Caedan could see at the end of his blade, Miranza and Theron and the others fading into background noise. He was dimly aware of Miranza’s repeated attempts at slicing the terminal, her actions only noticeable to him because every time she triggered the system, a flash of light filled the room and more droids appeared. He thought he could hear Theron coaching her – or coaxing her – but his voice was little more than a buzzing noise in Caedan’s ear although it sounded like the operative was growing increasingly frantic with each passing second. Koth was letting out a steady stream of curses in between bursts of blaster fire, and from the sound of things he was drawing away from the door, moving in closer to where Miranza and Theron were working as he was pushed back from the exit.

Another pulse of light and Miranza let out a muffled scream, her voice all but drowned out by the sounds of violence echoing throughout the room.

“Beloved!”

That moment of distraction was all it took. Caedan watched in muted horror as one of the larger security droids lashed out, its weighty manipulator connecting with the Joiner’s chest in a solid crunch that sent the man flying. Vector collided with the far wall and did not get up again.

Behind Caedan there was a single horrified gasp and then Miranza’s voice, brittle and small: “Vector?” In all the brief time that he’d known the woman, she’d not once used anything but their call-signs in the middle of an op, and that uncharacteristic slip revealed more than her tone or expression ever could.

Then, Theron’s voice, raised in a snarl: “Finish the job, Aurek Five.”

As if Theron’s command had been intended for him as well, Caedan switched back into combat-mode, charging the droid that had fallen Vector. He ducked in under that flailing manipulator and landed a glancing blow along the droid’s chassis, his lightsaber searing a path across the smooth metal plating. Two more droids scrambled in behind the first, one of them firing off a handful of blaster shots aimed indiscriminately around the room; Caedan’s shield took care of the bolts that would have hit him, but he was the only one thus protected. He finished off the first droid and side-stepped into close range with the one with the blaster, his blade taking the droid’s manipulator off at the joint. The manipulator and the blaster hit the ground, and he kicked them both away towards the centre of the room, lest the droid find some way to reattach its severed limbs.

Blaster fire scored hits along the second droid’s plating, and Caedan recognized the yellow-green bursts as coming from Theron’s pistols. He didn’t spare the other man a glance as he closed with the droid, trusting in both Theron’s aim and his own shield to keep him safe. He could hear Koth cursing, a steady stream of profanity that at least served to inform Caedan that the Zakuulan was still fighting, and there was the occasional pained gasp from Miranza that told him she was still struggling with the terminal’s security features.

Something heavy and solid barrelled into Caedan, knocking him back a few paces until he was only a foot or so away from where Theron and Miranza worked. He righted himself, ignoring a twinge of pain from his knee, and raised his lightsaber, bracing for another attack. The droid reared back, something spherical and blinking in its upraised manipulator.

_Oh shit._

There was no time to think, barely enough time to act. Vector was down, Koth was at the far side of the room. Theron and Miranza remained side by side, but Caedan’s shielding tech wasn’t strong enough to cover all three of them – he had to choose.

An untrustworthy and highly unstable Imperial spy with homicidal tendencies or the son of his former mentor and the head of the Republic military: there was no choice to be made there. He could tell himself that the fact that he was attracted to one and terrified of the other wasn’t part of the equation, but he’d be lying to himself.

He didn’t think. He acted.

Caedan threw himself at Theron, tackling the former SIS agent to the ground and covering them both with his shield just as the concussive blast struck. His vision greyed out, his ears popping. When he came to Caedan was lying on his back, ears ringing, Theron crouched over him with both blaster pistols aimed at the entranceway. Blood trickled down one side of the agent’s face, but to Caedan’s immense relief Theron appeared otherwise unharmed. Caedan struggled to sit up, every muscle in his back screaming in protest, and tried to take stock of his surroundings even as his vision blurred and doubled and then corrected itself.

Battered droids littered the room, too many to count. Some had clearly been taken out by the concussion grenade but most had fallen to blaster-fire or Caedan’s lightsaber attacks. A significant amount of the computer equipment had been destroyed in the blast – or in the combat – and sat, smouldering and useless. Koth, firing his blaster rifle one-handed as he crouched next to Vector’s still form. Vector, unmoving, crumpled against the wall. Theron, huddled protectively over Caedan, firing at the last remaining droids, his face set in a hard, grim line. And finally, inexplicably: Miranza, hunched over the security terminal – draped over it, really, the bank of equipment no doubt the only thing keeping her upright – still working at slicing the Star Fortress’s weapons array. There was a body-shaped dent in the front of the terminal and one of the screens was sparking.

_“I’m complicated.” No fucking shit,_ Caedan thought. She’d taken a concussion grenade at close range and _was still standing._

_Fascinating,_ Valkorion’s voice purred in the back of Caedan’s mind, not for the first time when faced with the mystery that was Miranza Gerrick.

_Fuck. Off,_ Caedan thought in Valkorion’s direction. He shoved himself to his feet, shaking off Theron’s concern, and with a burst of Force-energy yanked his discarded lightsaber back into his hand. Igniting the blade, he leapt towards the last remaining droid, falling on it with an overhand strike that seared through its face-plate just as a rapid burst of blaster-fire from Theron finished it off.

The droid hit the floor with a heavy metallic clang and the room fell eerily silent. Caedan’s ears were still ringing, the hilt of the lightsaber heavy in his hand. He holstered it at his belt and rubbed sweat away from his brow, turning at the sound of Theron’s voice.

“Tell Cresh One she’s good to go.”

Caedan blinked before remembering that “Cresh One” was Senya’s call-sign. His heart was thundering in his chest and his limbs felt weak and shaky. He was exhausted, adrenaline beginning to wane, dozens of aches and pains clamouring for attention throughout his body.

“Aurek One to Cresh One,” he said, after a few attempts to get the words out.

_“Cresh One, copy.”_ Senya’s voice came through loud and clear over the comm.

“You’re up, Cresh One,” Caedan informed her.

There was a moment of silence while Senya processed that information and what it meant: that Caedan’s team’s op had been a success – at least with regards to the Star Fortress’s shields and weapons array – but that for whatever reason his team was unable to continue. There was a weight to Senya’s silence, and Caedan could almost picture the older woman’s face as she considered the implications.

_“Copy, Aurek One,”_ Senya replied at last, tone grave. _“Are you …?”_

Caedan surveyed the room again: Koth taking stock of Vector’s condition while Theron tore through the medkits, Miranza all but collapsed into the indent of the security terminal as though the act of moving would result in her crumpling to the ground, his own battered and bruised form. He sighed, wincing at how even that slight movement sent agony up through his back.

“Team Aurek is down, Cresh One. You’re on deck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from a line from "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.
> 
> Apologies for the cliffhanger but this was getting _long_ and I felt this was a natural break.
> 
> I am just getting back into the swing of writing these guys, so I apologize if people feel OOC or if my writing isn't up to par. (I kinda ended up using Koth as my go-to audience "what the fuck is wrong with you people?" insert. He felt well-suited to the task.) Hopefully you've enjoyed this chapter nonetheless; I had fun writing it!
> 
> A note about the call-signs: Team Nexu is Theron's team pre-Alliance. The new call-signs (Team Aurek, Team-Not-Appearing-in-This-Chapter-Besh and Team Cresh) are the new post-Alliance teams. Team Nexu was starting to get a little unwieldy.
> 
> And yes, Theron hanging upside-down from a floating billboard is totally a call-back to _The Lost Suns_ comic series.


	43. Ashes In My Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An emergency trip to the med centre on Nar Shaddaa has unintended consequences.

_**Nar Shaddaa, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“You found them like this.” The Duros’ voice was flat, his green-skinned face perfectly blank as he absorbed the story Theron had fed him. Theron found it difficult to read his expression, and the goggle-like red eyes gave nothing away. “After a speeder-bike crash.”

“Yup.” Theron fought against the urge to fold his arms across his chest; he didn’t want to appear defensive. He made his own expression as open and guileless as possible: _Nothing to see here, nope! Just an innocent bystander, a do-gooder. Look at me, doing good._ “My friends and I” – he gestured between himself, Caedan and Koth, the latter staring around the med centre as though he half-expected skytroopers to come bursting out of the walls – “just happened to come across them on our way to the casino. They’re lucky we found them.”

“Right. Lucky.” The Duros _did_ fold his arms across his chest. Theron strongly suspected the medic didn’t believe a single word he’d said, but he also suspected that it likely wouldn’t matter. This was Nar Shaddaa; this med centre was on ground held neutral from the Republic or the Empire. So long as Theron was willing to hand over a staggering sum of credits – and he was – the Duros and his staff would see to Miranza’s and Vector’s injuries regardless of what they might or might not believe about the circumstances behind them.

Once the smoke had cleared and Caedan had made the call to activate Senya’s team, Theron’s first concern had been Vector. He had been focused on Miranza at the time, but the memory of Vector’s voice calling out to his wife – and then the sound of the Joiner crashing into one of the nearby walls – was unlikely to leave Theron anytime soon. He’d expected to find Vector dead or dying and had been immensely relieved to discover that the Joiner – while badly injured – had been conscious and struggling to climb back to his feet in an effort to get to Miranza.

It was only then, when Theron realized how desperate Vector was to reach his wife, that Theron remembered the concussion grenade – Caedan tackling him and knocking them both to the ground – the wave of concussive force that had swept over them and sent battle-droids flying – and that Miranza had been at the epicentre of that blast.

Miraculously – if whatever Darth Occlus had done to her could be considered a miracle – Miranza had still been standing. Barely. Theron had found her slumped over the security terminal, its front caved in around her body, the screens sparking and smoking. When he’d pulled her away her hands had stuck to the console, her gloves fused to the keypad and melted around her fingers. Her entire body was locked tight, muscles still contracting in the wake of repeated electrical shocks. The first shock had been enough to knock out Theron’s implants and render him unconscious, years ago when they’d first come across such security measures back on Zakuul; he’d lost track of the number of times Miranza had stood firm against multiple firings. She’d been shocked and hit by a concussion grenade and she was _still standing._ More or less.

None of them had escaped the fight unscathed, but Theron, Caedan and Koth were all at least conscious and mobile. The same could not be said of Vector or Miranza: the instant he saw that Miranza was being attended to the Joiner had slipped back into blessed, blissful unconsciousness, and Miranza had fainted sometime during the process of freeing her hands. (Not that Theron could blame her. There were deep burns all up and down both her arms and her gloves were stuck to her skin in a way that had him regretting ever learning the meaning behind the word ‘degloving.’) Neither could be roused, but – given the condition they were in – Theron wasn’t entirely sure he considered that to be a bad thing. He could at least hope that unconsciousness meant they weren’t in pain.

Miranza, at least, was light and easy to carry. Vector, as tall and leanly-muscled as he was, required both Caedan and Koth to lift. Theron was no doctor but he knew enough emergency medicine to know that both his lovers should be on stretchers – that they shouldn’t be moved at all, ideally – but stretchers weren’t available to them and leaving them behind wasn’t an option. He ignored the momentary lightheadedness that resulted from bending and lifting Miranza, and then, with Koth and Caedan carrying Vector between them, had led the way out of the access tunnels.

To Theron’s great amazement and relief they were not met by any further security droids, and this being Nar Shaddaa, no one stopped them as they’d made their way from the access hatch to the nearest med centre. They probably could have thrown a parade and not drawn more than cursory interest from the various bystanders on the promenade.

“So you said the man was thrown from the speeder bike?” the Duros confirmed. Theron was reasonably confident the medic was staring pointedly at the cut on his forehead, opposite his implants; he could feel it bleeding sluggishly down the side of his face. He’d given himself a quick once-over with the medkit before they’d left the access tunnel but the cut was still bleeding and it wasn’t serious enough to require kolto or stitches, so he’d just left it alone. The Duros’ eyes kept drifting towards it, the blood and bruising giving the lie to Theron’s innocent bystander story.

Theron nodded. “That’s what it looked like, anyway.” Getting tossed from a bike at high speed could at least explain the worst of Vector’s injuries. It wasn’t as though the Duros or his people were going to go investigate the supposed crash site to confirm Theron’s story. They just needed enough information to know what they were looking for, medically speaking, and Theron had seen enough bike crashes - courtesy of his misspent youth - to know just how much damage those things could cause, especially at high velocity.

“And the bike was on fire when you found it,” said the Duros. “With the woman at the controls.”

“Yes,” said Caedan, standing behind Theron. Like the Duros the Jedi’s arms were crossed; as tall and heavily-muscled as he was – standing there in his armour, with the hilt of a lightsaber hanging from his belt and the obvious scarring across his face – he presented a much more imposing sight. “We managed to drag her away, but her hands are badly burned.” Theron thought of Miranza’s melted gloves, fused to the console, and repressed a sudden urge to retch. Vomiting all over the Duros’ shoes might help to sell his random do-gooder impersonation but it would do nothing for his personal dignity. Caedan, oblivious to Theron’s reaction, continued, “I think she took the brunt of the impact.”

“Right,” said the Duros again dubiously. “The impact.” Theron, thinking of the way the security terminal had buckled under Miranza, tried not to shudder.

The Duros sighed and scratched long fingers over the top of his bald head. He stared at Caedan for a moment, his gaze drifting down to the lightsaber hilt, and then let out another long-suffering sigh. Theron couldn’t imagine that this was the first unlikely story the medic had been fed, nor would it be the last so long as he chose to work on Nar Shaddaa (or anywhere, really; people were weird and reckless the galaxy over). At least Theron and the others weren’t trying to bluff their way out of some bizarre object insertion mishap or pretend they didn’t know how they’d contracted some fascinating new sexually-transmitted disease. Violence, while certainly unpleasant, was not uncommon on the Smugglers’ Moon.

“All right, thank you for bringing them to us,” the Duros said at last, with a long, lingering glance in Theron’s direction. This time around Theron was positive the medic was looking at the blood on his face. “We’ll take it from here. You can … uh … leave. Or … sit in the waiting room, if that’s what you’re into. There’s a ‘fresher, if you want to … clean up.”

Caedan, ever the courteous Jedi, stayed to thank the medic, but Theron took the opportunity to retreat to the ‘fresher. His head was aching and now that the crisis had passed – more or less – he felt drained and empty. The ‘fresher attached to the med centre was almost claustrophobically tiny, but Theron sealed himself in and spent a few seconds just trying to calm his racing heart. He very studiously avoided meeting his own eyes in the mirror over the sink, even as he used water and some napkins to clean the blood off his face. The cut on his forehead wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked; once he had the blood washed away he could see that it was already beginning to close. The bruising would be fairly impressive, however. Theron washed his hands and waited for the trembling to subside before stepping outside the ‘fresher.

The waiting room was small but mercifully empty. He rejoined Caedan and Koth, sinking into a chair beside the Zakuulan and trying desperately to adopt a casual demeanour.

_Please let them be all right,_ he thought as he stared blankly at a spot on the wall opposite him. He could not take it if his last words to Miranza were him yelling at her to do her job. He hadn’t meant to snap at her. She had _been_ doing her job – more than her job, really, because honestly, whose job involved them allowing themselves to be repeatedly electrocuted in the name of infiltration? He shouldn’t have said anything. He just hadn’t wanted her to get distracted over what had happened to Vector - not when Vector’s own distraction had led to _him_ being injured. There was too much at stake.

He wanted to be back in the examination rooms with them. The idea of leaving Vector and Miranza alone with unknown and potentially untrustworthy medics was a thoroughly unpleasant one, but the nature of their story – three friends out for a night on the town happening to come across a pair of strangers in distress – would not allow for such out-of-character behaviour. Strangers did not oversee emergency medical treatment. The memory of his and Miranza’s experience on Nar Shaddaa years earlier when they’d been ambushed at the implant clinic rested at the forefront of Theron’s mind, however. He didn’t know these doctors. He didn’t know their loyalties, or whether their ethics could be bought with enough credits. He did know that Vector and Miranza – not to mention Theron himself – were wanted in Imperial space following Vector’s escape on Alderaan. He also knew that Miranza still had multiple bounties on her head. They weren’t safe here and there was nothing Theron could do about that other than to remain vigilant.

“Do all your ops end up like this?” Koth asked. He had a datapad on his lap, some kind of “happy homemaker” magazine, opened to an article on the ten dinners to prepare for finicky children.

Theron sank down in his seat and leaned back against the headrest. “Yeah, pretty much.” Equal measures success and disaster? That was more or less Team Nexu’s mantra at this point.

Koth made a strange sound that fell somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Remind me to fake sick the next time you want me to tag along, okay?”

Caedan _did_ laugh, a soft, slightly cynical sound that might have done strange things to Theron under different circumstances. More … private … circumstances. His tone turned anxious as he asked, “Think Senya’s team made it out okay?”

“By now she’s probably making every skytrooper on board the Star Fortress rethink its life choices,” Koth replied, flipping to another page in his magazine. _The New Summer Line is Here! Dress for Success, the Nar Shaddaa Way!_

“They’re droids,” Theron protested halfheartedly. “They don’t _have_ life choices.”

“This is Senya we’re talking about,” said Koth, in that usual tone of distaste and grudging respect he used every time he spoke of the former Knight of Zakuul. “Trust me, she can do it.”

The three of them fell into silence, Koth clicking through various articles on the waiting room datapad. Every now and again he would let out a derisive snort or a quiet chuckle, but otherwise he kept his opinions on the datapad’s contents to himself. Theron, who had never once in his life had even the vaguest concept of so-called “normal” domesticity, found himself moderately intrigued by the articles, and had to resist the urge to snatch the datapad away from Koth so that he could inspect its contents himself. Seriously, _Ten Ways to Get Your Husband to Talk to You? Nine Surefire Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life? Week-Night Dinners That Won’t Break Your Budget?_ The closest he’d ever come to domestic bliss was what he had with Vector and Miranza, and as far as he could tell that life bore no resemblance whatsoever to what that datapad promised. He tried to imagine Oriana Zarasa and Felix Iresso taking heed from these articles, and found that just as impossible as applying it to his own life. “Normal” was explosions and intrigue and living with the weight of everything they’d been through together. It wasn’t to be found on the screens of Koth’s datapad, no matter what the articles promised.

“They’re gonna be okay, Theron,” Caedan said after a moment, mistaking Theron’s melancholy.

Theron dredged up a weak smile for the Jedi. “Yeah. Of course they are. They’ve been through worse.”

That was a terrifying – if completely true – realization. “Normal” people probably didn’t have such metrics to compare themselves and their experiences against.

“I think,” he said slowly, letting the idea percolate, enjoying the taste of it in his mind, “I need a vacation.”

Koth snorted. “You’d be bored inside of a week.”

“Yeah,” Theron said again, nodding. “But it’d be an _amazing_ week.”

Koth looked ready to reply when a sudden crash and an ear-splitting scream broke the quiet tension of the waiting room. Theron leapt to his feet, blaster pistols in hand, moving without conscious thought towards the med centre’s examination rooms. Memories of his last visit to Nar Shaddaa – waking up restrained and drugged, with a dead body lying over him – flashed through his mind. Whoever their assailants were, they hadn’t come in by the front entrance of the med centre, they’d had to be lying in wait back in the exam rooms … How had they known to come here? Had Team Aurek been observed while racing across the promenade?

Theron’s feet skidded to a halt the instant he reached the first exam room and saw the scene in front of him. Behind him Koth cursed, all but colliding with Caedan as the two caught up to Theron.

There was no ambush, no bandits impersonating doctors, no skytroopers waiting to drag them all back to Zakuul.

There was simply Miranza, standing in front of the med centre’s databanks, one hand keying in commands while the other was wrapped around the throat of the Duros medic. That the medic was dead was obvious: his neck had been snapped, his head lolling listlessly at an odd angle. Also dead was one of the medic’s assistants, body lying half-folded against the wall, her throat slashed and blood painting her chest. The other assistant, a blue-skinned Twi’lek woman, was likely the source of the screaming: she was huddled in the corner as far away from Miranza and the dead Duros as she could get, her medical scrubs stained with blood and her eyes as wide as dinner-plates.

Miranza turned to the doorway the instant Theron stumbled through, her tense expression vanishing the moment she saw him. She dropped the Duros – the body landing on the tiled floor with a meaty thwack – and resumed her task at the databanks, both hands now flying across the keypad.

“How the _fuck_ is she still standing?” Caedan asked, of no one in particular. He had his lightsaber out and lit, and he did not switch it off when he saw Miranza. Theron didn’t think he’d ever heard the Jedi swear before.

Koth spoke around a throat gone suddenly hoarse, “I’m ninety-five percent sure she’s Zildrog reincarnated.”

“She killed Medros!” the Twi’lek babbled, and Theron didn’t know whether she was referring to the Duros or the dead woman with her throat torn open. No names had been given; he didn’t know these people. “Please, don’t let her hurt me!”

Caedan, predictably, moved to stand in front of the panicking Twi’lek, taking up an obvious position of defense. His bright green eyes swept the room, assessing threats, taking in the details of what had happened, putting the pieces together. At last his gaze came to rest on Miranza, and his expression was distinctly unfriendly.

When he spoke, however, the Jedi’s voice was completely calm and without judgment: “Miranza, what happened? What’s going on?”

“I can’t … oh, stars, Theron, you need to help me …” Miranza staggered against the databanks, her plaintive tone drawing Theron further into the room. As he approached he couldn’t help but notice the way her medical gown fell open in the back, the slips of pale blue fabric serving to frame the dark red serpentine markings on her back and the deep, angry bruising painting her pale skin. Closer still and he saw the bloody smears covering the datapad everywhere her fingers touched; her hands, as they moved over the keypad, were clumsy, unable to connect with the necessary keys. Her skin was red and shiny, angry-looking lightning-shaped lines trailing up from her hands to her wrists and forearms as if following the tracks of her markings. Once he reached the databanks he saw the files she had called up: medical records for an unknown human woman. Miranza’s records. She’d been trying to erase them.

“Oh, fuck,” he said, sounding about a million times calmer than he felt.

“Help me, Theron,” she said again, one bloodied hand going up to rub at her temple. She was shaking, her silver-blue eyes glazed over. “I need to … I can’t … I can’t think, Theron …” She froze, then pointed a trembling finger in the direction of the cowering Twi’lek, seeming to look through Caedan at her quarry. “She needs to die. She can’t … We … I …”

Theron turned and saw Caedan shift, ever so slightly, and meet his gaze. “I’m not moving, Theron.”

“Good,” Theron said succinctly, turning back to the databanks. He gently nudged Miranza aside, ignoring her nigh-incoherent mumbling, and quickly keyed in the command sequence to erase the most recent medical records. For good measure he also purged Vector’s records, as well as the security cam feeds. When he finished his hands were sticky with dried blood and a sick weight was building in his gut.

“We need to go,” he said, pulling Miranza away from the databanks. He didn’t know where to touch her: every visible centimetre of skin was covered in bruises or burns. Even so, when he wrapped one hand above her elbow she didn’t flinch or pull away. It took him a few tries to catch Koth’s gaze; the Zakuulan was staring around in open horror. “Get Vector. We need to get out of here, _now.”_

As if the snarled ‘now’ was the command word Koth had been looking for the Zakuulan pilot burst into motion, barreling through the room to the opposite doorway, which presumably led to another exam room and, hopefully, to Vector.

“It hurts, Theron,” Miranza whined, and for a moment he thought she meant her injuries, which did indeed look incredibly painful. Instead she still had one hand at her temple, fingers pressing in hard against the skin in spite of how much that must have aggravated the open burns on her hand. She tried to pull away from him, pausing as if she couldn’t decide between resuming her work at the databanks or going after the still-panicking Twi’lek. Unwilling to hurt her Theron released his grip on her arm and she chose, in that moment, to take a single staggering step toward the Twi’lek.

Caedan didn’t hesitate. His blade snapped up in front of him and a sudden burst of kinetic energy broke forth, focused on Miranza and knocking her back. She collided with Theron, who caught her before she could collapse and hefted her now-unconscious body up into his arms.

Seconds later Koth emerged from the other room, Vector’s arm slung over his shoulder as he helped the semiconscious man to walk. Vector didn’t appear to notice the state of the exam room; he was far too focused on remaining upright, his dark head drooping onto Koth’s shoulder, his entire body sagging as he tried to put one foot in front of the other. He looked up long enough to cast a confused glance in Theron’s direction before slumping heavily against Koth, the other man staggering to keep him upright. Once he’d managed to right himself Koth took another look around the room before finally resting his gaze on Theron, arching one dark eyebrow as he took in the sight of Miranza in Theron’s arms.

“Your girlfriend is a real piece of work, Shan,” Koth said.

In the face of such overwhelming evidence to support Koth’s statement, Theron found himself completely unable to disagree.

O o O o O

When Vector first awakened he found himself gazing at the ground, the tiled flooring only vaguely familiar. His awakening was slow, sluggish, and there was a strange floaty sensation that suggested he had been under the influence of some very good drugs. That realization was all it took for him to remember what had happened, and he came to with a start.

Miranza. The sentry droids. The slicer trap.

He tried to push himself up into a sitting position but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate and even the slightest movement sent agony through his back. He didn’t remember getting hurt although he did vaguely recall a momentary lapse of attention on his part that could certainly have left an opening for attack. Panting around the pain, Vector closed his eyes and counted to ten, waiting for the worst of it to pass.

A hand landed on the curve of his shoulder, warm and dry. A familiar, welcome voice: “Easy, there. You’re okay.”

_“Theron.”_ Vector didn’t even try to hide the relief from his voice. The hand rubbed along the lines of his trapezius, gentle fingers stroking lightly over bare skin. “You … We … What happened?”

“We won,” Theron said. He crouched down beside the bed until he was at about eye-level with Vector. Up close the familiar features were care-worn and tired, a nasty bruise darkening the curve of Theron’s forehead. “We’re back on board the _Vigilant._ Senya’s team reported back about an hour ago – success. The Star Fortress over Nar Shaddaa is offline.”

Well … that was welcome news, surely? But Vector had the nagging sense that Theron wasn’t saying everything. The _Vigilant_ was Master Savarr’s ship, which meant that Vector was most likely in the medbay – no big surprise there, given how dreadful he felt, and probably for the best. His Killik-enhanced senses told him that he and Theron were the only ones in the room: did that mean the others were unharmed? Were Theron and Miranza taking turns sitting vigil over him?

“You are uninjured?” he asked finally. Between the drugs and the disorientation he was having a hard time pulling his thoughts together. One subject at a time, he decided.

“I’m fine,” Theron said. He gestured vaguely towards the bruise on his head. “Just a little banged up.”

“And Miranza? Where is she? Is she well?”

Theron’s expression darkened and for a moment Vector’s blood ran cold. _Something has happened._ No doubt sensing his distress Theron gave a weak smile and sat back on his haunches, giving the Joiner’s shoulder another gentle pat. It was, so far as Vector could tell, the only spot on his back that didn’t ache. Or perhaps it was just because Theron was the one touching him; perhaps, were it someone else - someone other than Theron or Miranza - the slight contact would cause him pain.

“She’s … injured,” Theron began, tone evasive. Vector frowned at him. “But it’s … Ah, stars, how much do you remember? Do you remember the med centre?”

“What med centre?” Vector replied automatically. The last thing he remembered was Miranza making some kind of pained noise and lights flashing in the access tunnel. If there had been a med centre at some point in his recent past, Vector had no memory of it.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Theron grimaced but stayed silent.

“Theron,” Vector said warningly, “What’s happened with Miranza? If she was injured, why is she not here in the medbay, with us?”

Theron’s face fell as he muttered, almost too softly for Vector to hear, “She’s in the brig.”

“She’s in the _what?!”_ Vector tried again to sit up only to fall back down to the mattress, his head swimming and his back protesting every tiny movement. He scowled. “Theron, help us up. Now, _please.”_

It took some delicate maneuvering but Theron managed to help Vector over onto his side, enough that the Joiner was able to slowly and cautiously shift into a sitting position on his own. It hurt, but the pain was a welcome respite from the worry and confusion he felt. Miranza was in the brig? What had happened? Had the galaxy gone _mad_ in the brief time he’d been unconscious? He felt like he’d woken up on a rollercoaster while the ride was in mid-flight, with no sense of where it was taking him or how he’d come to be there.

Once Vector was resituated Theron hooked the toe of his boot around the leg of a nearby chair and used it to haul the chair over beside him. He sat facing Vector, his hands resting lightly on his knees. His expression remained grim, his hazel eyes shaded.

“You and Miranza were injured,” he said, pitching his voice low. “We weren’t sure you’d make it back to the ship, so we took you both to a med centre.”

“On Nar Shaddaa,” Vector said cautiously, attempting to verify his own vague recollections.

Theron nodded. The confirmation was not as reassuring as Vector would have liked.

“There was … an incident,” Theron continued. He spoke slowly and carefully, weighing each word. Vector was rather forcibly reminded of how alike spying and diplomacy were, how much meaning could be instilled into – or eradicated from – every word. He remembered, too, what Miranza had said Amrielle had called Theron: _beautiful liar._ He didn’t think Theron was lying now, but he could sense that his lover was very cautiously stepping around the truth, toeing the line between truth and fiction in a way that served to blur them both.

As Theron spoke, outlining – in very broad strokes – what had happened in the Nar Shaddaa med centre, Vector found himself gazing down at his own hands, staring sightlessly at the tanned flesh and the familiar lines. He found it difficult to process Theron’s words. Miranza had killed two people, in cold blood. She had tried to kill a third and would have had Master Savarr not stopped her. She had done so in spite of terrible injuries – his brain seemed to skip over Theron’s assurances that Miranza would heal and instead focused on barely-grasped concepts like _second- and third-degree burns, internal bleeding_ and _crush syndrome._ She’d been hit directly by a concussive blast, and _that_ had been after sustaining repeated electrical shocks. She should be dead. She wasn’t dead, and she had murdered two people.

And now she was in the brig, being tended to by an emergency medical droid that Master Savarr had purchased at great cost before they’d left Nar Shaddaa.

“I think,” Theron continued, after wrapping up the summary of misadventure, “that her behaviour has to do with … whatever it was that Darth Occlus did to her.” As had become the norm when discussing Miranza, Darth Occlus and the changes Miranza had undergone, Theron’s voice was heavily shaded with guilt and shame; he continued to blame himself for Miranza’s condition, in spite of repeated assurances and admonitions that it had been her choice and necessary.

Vector didn’t have the time – or the emotional energy – to spare for Theron’s guilt. He considered and discarded a number of sarcastic, acerbic responses before settling on the dangerously mild, “Yes, that would seem most likely.”

“She won’t – she _can’t_ talk about it,” Theron went on, oblivious to Vector’s thoughts. “If Darth Occlus programmed her to keep the alterations a secret – or, at least, the specifics of what was done and how – is it possible she’s also been programmed to … well, to clean up any potential leaks?”

“She saw medical on Odessen,” Vector reminded Theron listlessly. “For her broken arm.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t invasive.” Theron waved the suggestion away. “The medics on Nar Shaddaa would’ve had to be far more … intensive … to treat her injuries.”

Vector understood that Theron was trying to distract himself from the darker, more concerning elements of this recent development by focusing on the entire situation as if it were a puzzle. Broken down into pieces – why did Miranza react the way she did, what made the Nar Shaddaa med centre different from the one on Odessen, what if this was a result of Darth Occlus’s programming – it was easier for the former Republic spy to distance himself. This wasn’t his lover seemingly going off the rails in a dramatic and horrifying fashion, but rather a riddle to be solved. A mystery.

This was their _life,_ and it was crashing down around them.

“Theron,” Vector said softly, grabbing hold of the other man’s hands and drawing them into his lap, “Love, what are we going to do?”

Theron squeezed his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was very small and very tired: “I don’t know.”

O o O o O

The brig on the Vigilant was in truth no such thing. Jedi Master Caedan Savarr was not the sort of person to have a brig or cages of any sort on his ship, and as such one of his crewman’s rooms had been converted, although he didn’t specify to whom the tiny cabin had originally belonged. Based on what little intel he possessed on the subject, Theron’s best guest was that the cabin had belonged to Fideltin Rusk, a Chagrian soldier in the Republic Military who had served with Caedan prior to the Jedi’s disappearance in Wild Space. Theron’s sources had yet to determine where Rusk or the rest of Caedan’s crew had gone, aside from Teeseven.

Now the small, tidy cabin housed Miranza and a single emergency medical droid, and the doorway was blocked by a force-field that even Theron, with his high-tech implants and his skills as a slicer, couldn’t determine how best to disable.

Theron had expected to find Miranza asleep, but when he approached the brig she was awake, settled into a half-sitting position with a lightweight sheet over her legs and abdomen. Her hands, swathed in crisp white bandages, sat idly over her stomach. Her hair was loose, platinum strands made greasy and lank from sweat and illness. She looked impossibly small as she sat, staring blankly outside her cell.

Her gaze lifted as Theron approached the force-field, her altered silver-blue eyes meeting his. He’d thought she would be defiant or apologetic, but instead she simply seemed confused and tired. She smiled weakly when she saw him.

“You’re all right,” she breathed, her voice a little on the raspy side. Her relief was palpable. Theron was faintly amused to realize her first words to him were an eerie echo of Vector’s: both of his lovers’ first concern was for his welfare. It was so like them to worry about him more than themselves.

That thought made him frown. She really should have been worrying about herself.

“Aren’t you going to ask why you’re in this cell?”

Miranza blinked, smile faltering. Her tone was deliberately light when she said, “I assume I did something your pet Jedi didn’t approve of?”

_My pet Jedi. Right._ Theron ignored the jab; he hadn’t come there to fight. Instead he let out a sharp bark of laughter, nodding, and said, “Yeah, you nailed that one on the head. Do you remember what you did?”

More blinking, followed by a faintly puzzled expression that was quickly smoothed away, but not before Theron saw the confusion in her eyes. She didn’t know. She had no idea why she was trapped behind a force-field on Caedan Savarr’s ship. He wondered what else she’d forgotten – did she remember how she’d been injured? Did she remember the shields and weapons array? Did she remember being on Nar Shaddaa at all?

At Miranza’s blank look Theron said slowly and carefully, as if he was breaking the news of terminal illness or the death of a loved one, “Miranza, you murdered two people in cold blood.”

Given her obvious confusion Theron was expecting some kind of dismissal, a laughed “Don’t be ridiculous!” or a scornful rebuttal. Instead – as if she’d woken up determined to behave contrary to every single one of his expectations – Miranza frowned and leaned back against the pillows supporting her, carefully considering his words.

“All right,” she said at last, nodding. “Tell me about it.”

So he did, and when he finished describing the events in the Nar Shaddaa med centre – a story that required a bit of background to update her on what had happened after the concussion grenade – Miranza just nodded again and it was Theron’s turn to stare blankly, his mouth agape. She’d just … accepted it? _“Hey, babe, you killed a couple of innocent people who were just trying to help you. What was all_ that _about?”_ She wasn’t upset, she wasn’t remorseful, she wasn’t … anything.

“That’s it?” he demanded, incredulous. “You killed two people and … you have nothing to say for yourself?”

Miranza seemed to consider his question before nodding again and asking quietly, “Did you wipe our medical records from their databanks?”

The urge to blow up at her was so overwhelming that Theron had to turn around and face the other direction to buy himself enough time to cool down. He regretted leaving Vector behind in the medbay; the Joiner was in no condition to get up and move around the ship, but he would have been a mediating influence on the two of them, and of them all he was the one most likely to keep his composure. But Vector _was_ still in the medbay, in no shape to confront his wife over her actions, and Theron was on his own to handle this situation. At least he didn’t have Caedan or Koth there to complicate things. He didn’t think either one of them would be terribly thrilled by how blasé she was being. _He_ wasn’t thrilled and he loved her; Koth, on the other hand, had seemed ready to toss her out the nearest airlock the moment they’d left the med centre, and Caedan was only marginally more reserved.

When he turned back around Miranza had a pained expression on her face that made him immediately regret his near-outburst. She was injured. This wasn’t the time to be interrogating her, as much as he desperately wanted to know what the fuck had happened in that med centre. She was hurting and she was stuck in a cell and had Theron been in her place he would have been losing his Force-be-damned mind. As crazy and destructive as her actions had been – and there was no pretending they were otherwise; this whole situation was so far beyond insane he wasn’t sure there was a word to describe it – surely he could wait to talk to her about this once they were back on Odessen and she was in better condition.

“Theron, _did_ you wipe our medical records?” Her pained expression was growing stronger and as he watched she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose between two bandaged fingers, her eyes narrowing as if the light in the brig was causing her a headache.

Curiosity almost compelled him to lie about it, just to see what her response would be, but instead he told her the truth: “Yeah, I wiped everything. You, Vector, the security cams, all of it.”

Her relief was palpable, her head falling back onto the pillows with a muted thud. “Oh, thank the Force. And the medics – they’re all dead?”

“I … _what?”_

“The medics, Theron.” The look she gave him was intense. “You said I killed them. I _did_ kill them, right?”

_Unbelievable._ Theron didn’t pause to consider her reaction, choosing instead to give her the truth: “No, Miri. I mean, yeah, you killed two of them, but there were three –”

Miranza’s eyes flew open in panic as she struggled to sit up. Her movements must have pulled at something because she suddenly hunched over, both arms curling around her middle while the emergency medical droid sprang to life and began hovering over her protectively, its manipulators flailing.

“Go back,” Miranza whispered, voice urgent. “We have to go back, Theron, we can’t … My master … She’ll –”

“We can’t go back,” Theron replied. An alarm started ringing, one of the pieces of medical equipment sounding off an alert – her blood pressure was too high or her heartrate too fast or something equally worrying. The droid continued to flail, trying to push her back down onto the bed – _how is she even getting up?_ – and a hypospray suddenly appeared in one of its manipulators.

“We can’t go back,” Theron repeated himself, as the droid tried to get her to calm down. “Caedan won’t let you anywhere near that medic. He’s not gonna let you kill her.”

Miranza’s hands were pressed against her temples, knuckles digging in against her skull. Her face had gone unnaturally pale and her eyes were wide with terror. She struggled against the droid, medical alarms raising in pitch and urgency. The hypospray sank into the soft skin under her jaw and Theron watched as the droid’s manipulator depressed the plunger just before Miranza managed to knock the instrument aside. The hypospray went flying, bouncing off the force-field to land a few feet away. Even from that distance Theron could see that it was now empty, its contents already beginning to race their way through Miranza’s veins.

Whatever it was that the droid had given her – Theron’s best guess was some kind of sedative – the drug appeared to work quickly. Miranza’s eyes glazed over and she fell back limp against the pillows. The droid began reassessing her condition, its alarms shutting down one after another as it confirmed that she hadn’t damaged herself during her struggles.

Horrified – and with a dark current of fear beginning to work its way through his system – Theron staggered back from the force-field, suddenly terrified that he and Caedan may have made the wrong call.

_“My master,”_ Miranza had said. _“She’ll …”_ She hadn’t had the chance to finish her sentence; Theron had cut her off. But what would Darth Occlus – Miranza’s master – do if she discovered that somewhere on Nar Shaddaa was a woman who knew something, even the teensiest, tiniest amount of knowledge, about Miranza’s alchemical enhancements? What would the Sith Lord do to the Twi’lek medic?

What would she do to _Miranza,_ for letting that information slip?

Knowing what he did of the Sith, Theron had only one answer to that question.

_Nothing good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from a line from Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullaby." A lot of the lyrics in that song put me in mind of Miranza (and since her transformation fire has become something of a recurring theme for her).
> 
> LPT: If you don't already know the meaning of the word "degloving," do yourself a favour and remain blissfully ignorant. It's too late for me - save yourself!


	44. Lost Boys and Golden Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron rallies and then falters. Caedan comes to some uncomfortable realizations. Vector gets some much-needed support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for alcoholism and victim(self-)blaming.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The cantina was busy as always, the Neimoidian bartender fixing drinks as fast as the waitstaff could carry them out. Someone had plugged enough credits into the jukebox to ensure it would play the same song over and over again for the next few hours, and Theron was positive he’d have that song stuck in his head later on. He sat at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey – his second for the night, not that anyone was keeping count, and certainly not him – and debating whether or not to stop in on Miranza before heading back to his own room. He’d spent the bulk of his afternoon sitting in the infirmary with Vector, keeping the Joiner company in between bouts of Force-healing from Lana and Senya. He hadn’t seen Miranza in more than a day.

Theron told himself he wasn’t avoiding her, but the truth of the matter was that he found himself profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of visiting her in the brig – which was precisely where Caedan had stuck her the moment the _Vigilant_ returned to Odessen. (The fact that they’d _built_ a brig was due in large part to Miranza; after her takedown of the would-be assassins upon her arrival at Odessen it had become very obvious that, as much as everyone wanted to believe they could all work together and be happy, there would always be troublemakers who would need a little time-out for bad behaviour.) Vector healed rapidly, thanks to his Joiner stamina, but Miranza had managed to surpass him in that respect and by the time Team Aurek was back on Odessen her injuries – as grievous as they had been – seemed to be more or less taken care of. Her urgent desire to go back to Nar Shaddaa, on the other hand, had been very much in play. Caedan, typical Jedi that he was, wasn’t about to let her return to the Smugglers’ Moon to finish off the Twi’lek medic, and so he’d taken her into custody and tossed her into the brand-spanking-new brig.

Where Theron had yet to visit her.

It was bad enough seeing Vector in the infirmary. He couldn’t also handle seeing Miranza behind bars. Or a force-field, as the case may be. If that made him weak then so be it, he was weak.

This was his fault. If she hadn’t needed to rescue him from Darth Jadzira none of this would have ever happened. Miranza wouldn’t have made the deal with Darth Occlus and wouldn’t now be desperate to keep her “master’s” secrets. She wouldn’t have killed those two medics on Nar Shaddaa and wouldn’t now be trying to get back there to kill the third. She’d be able to sit in the infirmary with Vector, to return to their shared quarters at night, to advise Lana at the command table, to be her usual wonderful self. She wouldn’t have everyone on the base tiptoeing around her like she was a timebomb waiting to go off. A timebomb that _had_ gone off and surely would explode again.

Theron took a small sip of his whiskey and reflected on the fact that sobriety – something most people seemed to manage just fine all on their own – seemed to be next to impossible for him. Maybe if the galaxy would just stop shitting on him for once he’d get his act together.

Today, however, was not that day.

The base on Odessen was finally starting to come together. Hylo’s smugglers were pulling in higher-quality stuff – Theron’s whiskey being proof of that – and the supplies were definitely getting better. There was a small school operating out of a platform situated over the speeders in the hangar, the infirmary was now more than a closet full of medical equipment, and there were a variety of places where the soldiers of the Alliance could train. It was starting to feel more and more like home, and that was a very strange concept for Theron to wrap his head around.

For a while ‘home’ had been Miranza and Vector. Theron had lost that feeling – or rather, he’d had that security forcibly ripped from him at the hands of Darth Jadzira. Not just because of what the Sith lord had done to him, but in the wake of his abduction and rescue, when Miranza had been forced to go with Darth Occlus instead of coming back to Odessen with him and Vector, it’d felt like one of his cornerstones had been kicked out. Vector, of course, had been amazing and supportive, but it had been difficult being around the Joiner and knowing that the third member of their triad couldn’t also be with them. And Theron had been far, far too messed up to subject Vector to his mood swings and nightmares and all-around dysfunctional behaviour. It had only been in the last few weeks or so that he had made the conscious decision to move back in with Vector and Miranza – but Lana had let him keep his old room, just in case.

Now, with Vector in the infirmary and Miranza in the brig, that “just in case” was his life. At least in his old room his small bed didn’t feel quite so lonely without two warm bodies curled up beside him. At least in his own room he didn’t need to tidy up after himself, or explain the half-empty bottles tucked under the bedframe, or maintain the illusion of regular meals and proper hygiene. He could go back to wallowing in misery and there was no one to call him out on his nerfshit.

Cupping his chin in one hand, Theron traced patterns in the condensation on the bar top, his finger trailing through spilled alcohol and water. He’d finished his glass and was seriously debating a third; the bartender kept a tab for his customers but had long ago said that as one of the co-founders of the Alliance Theron’s credits were no good in his bar and his drinks – and food – were on the house. Theron wondered if the Neimoidian had any idea that he was catering to an alcoholic, and decided against enlightening the man. Sooner or later someone – Vector, Lana, maybe Caedan if he’d figured it out yet – would notify the bartender and Theron’s free ride would be cut off. In the meantime he intended to enjoy it while it lasted.

“What happened to all that frothy pink shit you love so much?” A hand snaked out and yanked the empty tumbler off the bar and Theron turned to see an unwelcome guest holding the glass up to his face, staring at it dubiously.

“Fuck off, Ryshan.” Theron was amazed at how calm his voice sounded, how steady his hands on the bar. Inside he was trembling. His stomach was roiling.

“Hey, is that any way to talk to an old friend?” Ryshan Esselby – smuggler, pilot and, oh yes, colossal asshole and _rapist_ – smirked at Theron, setting the tumbler back down on the bar with an audible thump. He motioned for the bartender to come and refill Theron’s drink, ordering a whiskey for himself, and then turned back to Theron, a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. “Damn, you’re lookin’ good as always. You lose weight?”

_Yes,_ Theron thought, taking a small sip of his refreshed drink and fighting the urge to fling it in the other man’s face. _Because of you. Because of you and …_ He still couldn’t bring himself to say her name, not even in his thoughts. He was never going to be done with being fucked up by them. Being fucked by them. In the back of his mind he could hear the voice of the captain of Darth Jadzira’s guard, telling him over and over again that it was all he was good for. Theron’s hand curled tight around the tumbler, his knuckles going white. His hand hurt. His stomach hurt.

“What do you want, Ryshan?” he asked, scanning the crowded bar for a friendly face, someone who he could trust to come along and rescue him. The cantina was busy but, aside from the bartender, there was no one there he knew. At least no one he knew well enough to call on for assistance. _It’s fine. You’re a big boy. Just sit, play nice, pretend he’s someone else._

“Eh, just catching up,” Ryshan said, shrugging. “Hylo’s got me running weapons and armour between Odessen and Corellia; I just got in last night.” He leaned back on his barstool, giving Theron an appreciative once-over, head to toe. His grin was toothy, predatorial. Theron wondered how he’d never noticed before that Ryshan always looked at him as though he were a piece of meat. “It’s a pretty profitable run and I get to help save the galaxy all at the same time.”

Theron, reaching for his drink as Ryshan spoke, felt his knuckles brush against the hard glass and send the tumbler knocking back a few inches, whiskey sloshing over the sides. It was the absurdity of Ryshan – fucking _Ryshan Esselby_ – considering himself some kind of hero or saviour. Theron’s brain refused to compute. He quickly drew his hand back and closed it in a fist to hide the trembling, painfully aware that Ryshan was watching him – watching him and no doubt wondering what the fuck was wrong with him and whether or not that would get in the way of hooking up with him again. Not that Theron had any intentions of falling into bed with the smuggler again – but then, he hadn’t had any intentions the last time the two had run into each other, and look where _that_ had gotten him.

_“You didn’t cheat on us, darling.”_ Miranza’s voice, soft and tired and ever so beloved. _“You were raped.”_

Yeah, well, Miranza wasn’t there to remind Theron of that fact, nor was Vector there to back her up. And the voices in Theron’s head had never once supported him.

Composing himself with great effort, Theron picked up the glass again and took another drink, finishing off the whiskey. Ryshan’s eyes were on him, green like Caedan’s were green but with none of the compassion or kindness the Jedi demonstrated. Instead, Ryshan’s green eyes were cold, cunning, scanning Theron as though peeling back every protective layer between them. Theron set the tumbler back on the bar top with deliberate care, proud of how steady his hand was – that hand, anyway; the opposite was in his lap, trembling against his thigh.

He opened his mouth to give a half-assed farewell when Ryshan leaned forward and snagged his chin between thumb and forefinger. For a moment time stopped as Theron’s world tilted precariously, everything hyper-focused on the weight of Ryshan’s fingers on his face and the intensity of the other man’s gaze. He found himself unable to breathe, unable to move – unable even to blink, his eyes blown wide open. His mouth had gone dry and he could taste copper on his tongue. There was a strange buzzing in his ears that seemed to drown out every other sound.

The moment snapped and with it Theron’s composure. He slapped Ryshan’s hand away and as the smuggler goggled at him in surprise he hauled back and punched the other man in the face. There was a loud crunch – audible even through the buzzing in Theron’s ears – as his fist impacted with Ryshan’s face, smashing that perfect nose. Ryshan fell off his barstool and onto the floor, gaping up at Theron as though seeing him for the first time. Perhaps he was.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Theron snarled down at the smuggler. He didn’t remember getting up off his own barstool but he was on his feet now, standing over the other man. The buzzing in his ears was getting louder; the cantina had fallen silent, patrons and staff alike turning to stare at the commotion. Bar fights were not unusual but this was probably the first time one of the leaders of the Alliance had been involved.

His hand ached and his heart was thundering in his chest and the buzzing was only getting louder and Theron _could not think._ He shook his head as if to clear it but that did nothing save make him feel dizzy. He jabbed a finger in Ryshan’s direction, aware of the way his hand shook, aware that it was only a small part of the trembling that threatened to overtake his entire body.

“Don’t you _ever_ fucking touch me!” The words felt like they had been ripped out of his throat and it _hurt._ The weight of the eyes on him was a palpable thing.

Theron staggered blindly out the door, the ripple of consternation in his wake drowned out by the persistent screaming inside his head.

O o O o O

The hangar was rapidly becoming the go-to place for Alliance base expansions. First it had been Khatera Suul’s school – which was thriving and would likely need an expansion of its own soon enough – then it had been the makeshift cargo container brig, and now it was a proper brig fashioned out of durasteel cells and force-fields.

All things considered, Caedan vastly preferred the school.

This was his first time visiting the new brig, and he marvelled at the work that had gone into making a secure location within the base. There were multiple cells – two of them currently occupied – all with low benches, a tiny table and a sectioned-off ‘fresher area that provided a small measure of privacy for the inmates. Force-fields were lit up on the two occupied cells, one on either end of the row as if bookending the empty sections, and Caedan could hear drunken off-key singing coming from one of them. He wondered how long that had been going on, and what the other occupant must think about her impromptu entertainment.

Miranza Gerrick was in the closest cell, where the guards – two Alliance soldiers, one with the Imperial cog at his shoulder, the other wearing the colours of the Republic Military – could keep a close eye on her. For all that she was a small, harmless-looking woman Caedan knew that at this point there wasn’t a single person on the base who was fooled by that appearance. He nodded at the guards and pretended that their responding salutes didn’t make him feel intensely uncomfortable, just as the title of ‘Commander’ still chafed against him like an ill-fitting suit.

She sat on the low bench, her back against the durasteel wall of the cell, her legs crossed under her. Her hands were covered by thin gloves designed to protect her healing skin but that was the only outward indication of the grievous injuries she had suffered on Nar Shaddaa. It amazed Caedan to see her looking so healthy. Vector was still in the infirmary and would likely need a few more days of Force-healing and recovery before he could be released, and yet his wife was almost perfectly fine. It didn’t seem fair. It _wasn’t_ fair.

She looked up at him as he approached her cell, and for a brief moment Caedan had an unsettling reminder of his first meeting with Satele Shan, the way the older Jedi had gazed at him from head to toe and he’d had the feeling that she was somehow seeing inside of him. Miranza’s gaze had that same weighty quality, as if she was assessing him – and, he realized, she likely was, although probably not in the same way Grandmaster Shan had assessed him. The former Grandmaster had weighed him as a Jedi, as a padawan and prospective knight. Miranza was evaluating him as a threat.

He suspected he came up lacking. He’d seen what she could do. He wasn’t confident he could take her in a fair fight. And he knew for a fact he’d lose an unfair one.

Miranza sat forward, feet dropping to the floor as the intensity of her gaze increased. “How is Vector? Is Theron all right?” Just like that she had shifted from vaguely threatening to anxious and solicitous. It was like someone had flipped a switch. One moment, psychopath; the next, loving wife. On. Off.

There was a temptation to let her sit and stew in her worry, but Caedan was never going to be the kind of person who could do that to someone else. She genuinely cared about Vector Hyllus and Theron Shan, and while others might have used that concern as a weapon against her – something she had no doubt experienced in the past, given what Caedan knew of Imperial tactics – that wasn’t his style. Besides, withholding the truth wasn’t going to give him an edge against her.

“Vector’s still in the infirmary but he’s recovering nicely,” he said, trying to infuse as much reassurance into his voice as possible. “Theron’s been with him. He seems fine.” He hesitated, uncertain whether or not he wanted to ask the next question, but followed through anyway: “Theron … uh … He hasn’t been in to see you?”

“No. He hasn’t.” Miranza visibly relaxed, leaning back against the wall again, but Caedan could see the way her lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Ah.” Caedan folded his arms across his chest, shifting his weight from one booted foot to the other. After a moment of uncomfortable silence he sighed and said, “What am I supposed to do with you?”

Miranza smiled, a slow curving of her lips that somehow managed to seem vaguely menacing - and just a little bit seductive. Not that she was Caedan’s type. For one thing, he’d never been especially attracted to women. For another, he didn’t fall for crazy.

“I’ve a thought,” she said, tone deliberately light. “You could let me out of here.”

Caedan snorted and uncrossed his arms. “If I do that, are you gonna head back to Nar Shaddaa to finish off that medic?”

It was Miranza’s turn to sigh as she closed her eyes and made a vague one-handed gesture. The soft white glove seemed to stand out in the cell, drawing the eye. “Would you prefer I lie to you?”

Swallowing, Caedan turned away, letting his gaze drift down to the other cell, where the unknown drunkard had finally ceased his singing. Somehow it made the brig seem almost too silent, as though the quiet had its own weight and was pressing down upon them.

“I can’t just let you run off and kill an innocent person,” Caedan said finally. “Surely you know that.”

Miranza pushed herself to a standing position and came up to the force-field. A few feet away the two guards shifted, hands falling to the blaster pistols at their belts, but Caedan waved them off. She saw their interaction and smiled, and this time around the expression was a small, secretive thing that was every bit as unsettling as her last smile. She and Caedan both knew that if she _wanted_ to do something the guards wouldn’t be enough to stop her. No, she was in the cell because she _chose_ to be, at least for the time being. The moment that changed - the moment she decided the pay-off was worth the risks - she would find some way to get free, and then those two all-too-human prison guards wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Are all Jedi this naïve, or is it just you?”

Caedan refused to let her or her mocking tone bait him. Instead he moved in closer to the force-field, feeling the light tickle of static brushing over his skin. It left the two of them mere inches apart, and had the force-field not been between them he could have reached out and touched her – or she, him. It was strangely intimate and it bothered him how disquieted that made him feel. How disquieted _she_ made him feel. Her presence in the Force was a sticky, unclean thing, like inky black tendrils that tried to reach out and snag him. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Everything about her screamed ‘danger’ to him. Not just ‘danger,’ but _‘wrong.’_

If he’d ever needed proof positive that Theron Shan was Force-blind, this was it. He couldn’t imagine being intimate with her and feeling that wrongness up close. It made his skin crawl. _She_ made his skin crawl.

“I don’t know,” he said after a few seconds had passed. He affected the same light tone she had used. “I haven’t met all the Jedi yet.”

Miranza’s strange silver-blue eyes looked past him, towards the two guards. Her expression was bland, her smooth features masking whatever it was she was thinking. He had the impression she was assessing the guards in the same way she had evaluated him, taking note of their strengths and weaknesses, deciding how best to take them down if it became necessary. He wondered if such evaluation was habit for her and concluded that it must be. He tended to do the same thing – when he was facing an enemy. He suspected Miranza assumed everyone was an enemy. He couldn’t imagine living like that, how _exhausting_ that must be.

“That woman is dead already,” Miranza said, and unless he was very much mistaken Caedan thought he heard a note of regret in her voice. “She just doesn’t know it yet. My hand or my master’s” – and for the first time he heard her say the word without a hint of hesitation – “the only difference is how much she suffers before the end.” She met his eyes and a shiver of frisson rippled through him. “As monstrous as you think me to be, I can assure you, my master is far, far worse.”

“Why? Why does that poor woman have to die?”

Miranza shot him a disbelieving glance, then moved back to the bench against the wall, flinging herself down onto its surface as if she hadn’t only recently been treated for extensive burns, broken bones and internal injuries. This time she sat so that her back was to the corner, her body angled on the bench with one foot up and the other on the ground. She rested her elbow on her knee, her head cupped in her upraised palm.

“You know about the ancient tombs on Korriban, yes?” At her question Caedan nodded, uncertain where this was going. Miranza continued, eyes sliding shut, “Legend has it that after the tombs were completed, the great lords had everyone involved in the construction and design put to death: the architects, the builders, the slaves. Everyone. Everyone who knew even the slightest detail about the tombs was executed so that the secrets would die with them. Afterwards, for the longest time – centuries, in fact – anyone who tried to uncover the tombs’ secrets was put to death as well.”

Caedan nodded slowly, his mouth going dry. “So … the details of what was done to you by … by your master …”

Pressing her thumb and index finger against the bridge of her nose Miranza nodded, then scrubbed her hand over her face. The soft fabric of the glove made a quiet rasping noise against her skin; if the contact hurt her, she gave no indication, but Caedan suspected the raw skin on her hands had to be exceptionally sensitive. “I can’t talk about it. I physically _cannot_ talk about it. Darth Occlus, my … my master … she …”

“She made you.”

Miranza scowled down into her palm. “She’s my architect.”

Caedan couldn’t help the cynical smile her words produced. “Then by that logic, shouldn’t she be killing herself?”

That earned him a small, rueful chuckle. “Since when have Sith ever followed anything even resembling logic?”

Caedan returned the laugh. _Fair enough._ He’d dealt with enough Sith in his time to know that few of them ever seemed to observe anything other than their own twisted logic, which seldom bore any resemblance to what the rest of the galaxy believed. He knew, from the limited amount of research he’d been able to do since discovering the identity of Miranza Gerrick’s master, that Darth Occlus was considered one of the more reasonable Sith. He could tell that in this case, ‘reasonable’ was highly subjective.

“Is there anything I can do to protect that Twi’lek woman?” he asked her at last. It was such a frustrating question: he’d thought he already _had_ protected the medic. The problem should’ve been handled the moment Miranza left Nar Shaddaa, and yet it sounded very much like regardless of whether or not she, personally, went back there to deal with the woman, that Twi’lek was dead. And if Miranza’s quick, brutal execution was the kinder option … No, it didn’t bear thinking about. He wasn’t about to just let Miranza go free so that she could finish the job, even if it sounded like Miranza’s methods might be more merciful than her master’s.

If he let Miranza kill her it would be no better than if he’d done the deed himself. The only difference would be that the blood on his hands would be metaphorical rather than literal.

Miranza looked up at him, an unreadable expression on her pale face. “If you do come up with something, don’t tell me about it. I can’t interfere with a plan I know nothing about.”

Later, it was only when Caedan reached his own suite that he realized: Valkorion had been completely silent the entire time he and Miranza were talking. The Force-ghost hadn’t made a single appearance. For all intents and purposes Caedan had been alone inside his own mind.

O o O o O

“Surprise, Uncle Vector!”

The clear, piping tones of Milo Iresso echoed off the walls of the infirmary as the little boy scurried forward, a handful of flowers proffered in his grubby green fist. Vector didn’t need to disguise his delight at the sight of the child – and his parents, who stood back a few feet beaming at their son.

Vector pressed one of the many buttons on a panel beside his bed, raising the head so that he could sit up properly. He accepted Milo’s gift, smiling at the little boy’s grave dignity, and took a moment to admire the brightly-coloured blossoms. The leaves and petals were wilting a little and there was dirt clinging to the stems, but it was a lovely gift nonetheless, and did much to bring cheer and colour to the infirmary’s sterile white environment. He looked around in vain for something to put the flowers in but could find nothing; after a moment Oriana Zarasa took pity on him and fetched a small glass of water for the bouquet.

“This is delightful,” Vector said, offering the little boy a warm smile. Milo beamed up at him before suddenly remembering his own shyness and dodging behind his father’s legs. In the two years since he’d last seen Oriana and Felix’s little family Milo had grown like a sprout, and Vector suspected the boy would grow to be taller than either of his parents. “Thank you very much.”

“I picked them myself!” Milo told him, speaking from behind Felix. The older man grinned, amused at his son’s conflicting desire to be the centre of attention and hide from sight at the same time.

“We are most grateful,” Vector replied solemnly. “They will do much to cheer our respite and hasten our recovery.”

Oriana came and settled herself with great care on the edge of the bed, her hand resting lightly on Vector’s ankle. Even through the lightweight sheet and his pajama bottoms her hand felt warm and reassuring, and Vector felt his eyes watering at the realization of just how grateful he was to see the Jedi and her little family. His stay post-Alderaan had been two years ago, yet it felt like an eternity. Their presence back then, as much as the support of Miranza and Theron, had gone a long way towards making Vector feel whole again in the wake of what the Empire had done to him, and having them here, now, was like a balm to his soul. There was a calmness and compassion to the couple that he’d not experienced anywhere else in the galaxy.

“It is good to see you,” he said softly, brushing away unshed tears with the back of one hand. “What brings you to Odessen?”

“Caedan, actually,” said Felix. In his arms the couple’s daughter Caia – she had to be approaching four years of age by now – was fast asleep, her little face scrunched up against her father’s chest. He stroked her curls absently, his other arm snug under her bottom, holding her in place. “He said the Alliance was in need of more good people – doctors and healers especially, but hey, I’m willing to put my hands to good work and help out where I can. And Khat speaks highly of you guys.”

‘Khat’ was short for Khatera, or Khatera Suul. She had been a teacher on Balmorra and then on Belsavis, working with Oriana at the school the Jedi had established to help educate the children of prisoners born on that prison planet. Khatera had been on Odessen for some time and had been responsible for setting up a school of her own. If Oriana intended to stay - and he very much hoped that she would - he wondered if she meant to continue her work as a teacher as well as healer. The Alliance certainly had need of both. And, as Felix had said, the Alliance could use more good people - and Felix and Oriana were among the best, in Vector’s estimation.

“It is good to be well thought of,” Vector commented. He shifted slightly, back twinging, and Oriana frowned at him, her blue-grey eyes filled with sympathy.

“Oh, Vector,” she sighed, her hand coming up to cup his cheek. She closed her eyes and he felt a warmth settle over him, glowing golden light radiating from her hands. The warmth suffused him, easing out the various aches and pains and momentarily energizing him. When she drew her hand away it was with a sad, small smile. “You’ve been ill-used.”

“It … We are well on the mend,” he replied, shaken.

“I don’t just mean these latest injuries.” Oriana patted his ankle, her expression sombre. “I can see the weight on you. How are Theron and Miranza?”

Vector swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. It seemed strange to him that, diplomat though he was, he couldn’t find the words to explain all that had happened since the last time Oriana and Felix had seen the three of them. It occurred to him that he should have brought Theron to Belsavis after his rescue from Darth Jadzira; perhaps the rustic simplicity of life on their little plot of land would have been a better balm than the fast-paced world of Odessen and the Alliance. But no, there had been a need for Theron – and for Vector himself – on Odessen, and Vector had thought – had hoped – that being needed and necessary would aid in Theron’s recovery.

Seeing Vector’s evident distress Felix reached down and caught his son’s hand, tugging on it playfully.

“C’mon, kiddo, I need your help finding Mistress Beniko so she can tell us where we’re staying,” Felix said, voice filled with false cheer. Milo looked up at his father, looking suddenly uncertain, but it was the part about needing his help that won the seven-year-old over. In Vector’s experience few children could resist the urge to demonstrate their usefulness. (This tactic, he’d found over the years, also worked well with recalcitrant ambassadors and arrogant nobility.)

Once Felix had ushered the two children out of the room Oriana resettled herself on the bed, shifting around so that she was facing Vector, her hand still resting on his ankle. He found the touch grounded him, which was likely her intent.

“Tell me about it,” she said, in that calm, warm voice, and so Vector did. He provided the Jedi with a heavily edited version of the events that had occurred since the last time he’d seen her, painting the story in broad strokes and giving her enough information that she understood without offering up any details that Theron or Miranza might consider private. When he spoke of Darth Jadzira the Mirialan’s face went perfectly still, her eyes flashing, and Vector realized she had heard of the Sith lord and was already well aware of the dead woman’s horrifying reputation. Mentioning Darth Occlus got a similar, albeit much more restrained, reaction, and she reached out her free hand to cup Vector’s cheek again.

He wrapped things up with the latest incident on Nar Shaddaa, telling Oriana about the slicer trap and the wave upon endless wave of droids. Then, in a very soft voice, he told her about what had happened at the med centre, how Miranza had killed two of the medics before being restrained. Oriana’s eyes went very wide and the hand curled around his ankle tightened almost painfully before she released him.

“Oh, _Vector,”_ the Jedi sighed again, and at the compassion in her voice the dam inside Vector broke, and all the fear and sorrow and grief and anger came pouring out. He found himself drawn into a pair of surprisingly strong arms as heart-wrenching sobs escaped him, his face pressed into the curve of her shoulder. Oriana just let him cry it out, hands stroking his back, her soft, plump body snug against his, the points of contact warm and reassuring. When he finished and finally drew back he saw that he’d left a damp spot on the shoulder of her robes and he scrubbed hastily at his face, feeling slightly overwhelmed and more than a little embarrassed.

“We are sorry,” he said, his voice scratchy.

“Vector.” Oriana dismissed his apology as unnecessary. “Have you had anyone to talk to about any of this?” She didn’t say ‘anyone other than Theron or Miranza,’ and he understood that this was because they were at the centre of this maelstrom, that there was no way to talk to either of his lovers because they were both so hopelessly entangled in this mess. Neither Theron nor Miranza was in a position where he could open up about how their situations impacted him without them feeling guilty or ashamed for causing him this grief in the first place. He didn’t blame either of them for any of this – _none_ of it was their fault – but he knew they would accept the blame nonetheless, and that wouldn’t be healthy or helpful for any of them.

“No,” he said softly, “there isn’t anyone we could take this to.”

And there _wasn’t._ No doubt Lana would be compassionate, but at the end of the day she was a busy woman, and she had already made enough concessions for Vector, Theron and Miranza when it came to their various issues and difficulties. Resources were spread thin and yet she’d let Theron have his own private room instead of forcing him into the barracks with the other “single” members of the Alliance. She’d let Vector bail on rescuing Caedan even though he and Theron had both been considered vital to the operation. She’d helped clean up Theron’s slips and cover up Miranza’s behaviour, and that was already asking much more than one could reasonably ask of someone who had never really been a friend, exactly, and who had, in fact, at one time been their superior. And Caedan Savarr was a delightful young man and Vector had the highest opinion of him, but he did not _know_ the Jedi Outlander particularly well and there were simply some things one did not dump upon the presumed saviour of the galaxy.

Vector had other friends and acquaintances on Odessen – Khatera, Sana Rae, Bey’wan Aygo – but he did not have the kind of relationship with any of them where it would be appropriate for him to come along and share the kinds of things he’d just shared with Oriana.

No, for all that Vector had had Theron and Miranza – and for all that he loved them both so very, very much – he was alone, and had felt alone ever since Darth Occlus had taken Miranza and left a badly damaged Theron in her stead.

“We are grateful you are here,” he said, and he meant it, from the bottom of his heart. “You and Felix both.”

“Well.” Oriana folded her hands primly in her lap and gave him a wan smile. “It seems we have our work cut out for us.”

O o O o O

There was no alcohol on board the _Mercurial,_ but that was okay: Theron had thought ahead.

He keyed in the access code and stumbled onto the ship he shared with Vector and Miranza, making his way towards the captain’s cabin. The X-70B Phantom spaceship had been home for a long time and despite how long he and Vector had been living on the Odessen base the captain’s quarters still showed signs of their presence. Most of their possessions had been moved to the base, but there were some odds and ends left behind: some pictures on a low shelf over the bed, pillows and sheets that still smelled of the three of them, clothing in the closets, and an assortment of toiletries spread out on the dresser.

Vector was in the infirmary. Miranza was in the brig. The idea of remaining on the base – alone in their room or alone in his own – made him want to scream. The spaceship was a compromise. It was the best he could come up with.

The noisome buzzing in his ears hadn’t left Theron since he’d fled the cantina, and even now he couldn’t escape the sound – or the anxiety that filled every nook and cranny in his mind. He’d been shaking ever since Ryshan had first spoken to him, and now the full-body trembling made it difficult to lift the bottle to his mouth without sloshing its contents down his front. His chest was damp and he smelled like a distillery, but at least some of the cheap grain alcohol was making its way into his gut. The whiskey had tasted better but the cheap stuff worked just as well.

His hand ached but he didn’t think he’d broken any bones – at least, none of his own bones. Ryshan’s nose was probably busted. He should’ve felt pleased with himself but instead Theron just felt empty and used up.

He was so done with this.

A while ago – fuck, had it really been two years? – he had promised Miranza he would try to quit drinking. He’d made a good job of it, too, even though it had been harder than he’d expected. Spies drank. That was just a part of the job: you drank to blend in, you drank to kill time, you drank to cope. And it was the drinking to cope part that had become an issue for him, and Theron _knew_ that. Frankly, he had a lot to cope with, and it was amazing he hadn’t moved on to harder stuff just to keep the edge off. But he’d done his best to honour his promise to Miranza and then …

Darth Jadzira. Darth Occlus. Too much shit to deal with and one of his key supports kicked out from underneath him at the same time. He’d at least managed to get clean from the spice and other drugs the Sith lord had kept him on, but alcohol, well, that old friend welcomed him back with open arms.

Miranza had yet to say anything, but he hated the fact that he was letting her – and Vector – down.

_Fuck._ Miranza. In his mind’s eye he could see the frantic terror and confusion on her face when Caedan had stepped between her and that poor Twi’lek medic. He couldn’t stop picturing that dead Duros, just dangling there from her hand as if he’d weighed nothing, his neck snapped like a brittle twig. Sometimes when he looked at her now he felt like he was staring at a stranger, one who wore his lover’s face but gazed back at him with an alien and inhuman heart. He didn’t feel unsafe around her but at the same time he realized that he could no longer trust himself to be able to predict her behaviour or understand her motivations. Whoever she was, whatever Darth Occlus had made her into, Theron could no longer pretend that Miranza was the same woman he’d fallen in love with.

And the worst part was, it was his fault. Whatever strange, monstrous thing she had become, she had done so because of him.

Hand curled around the neck of the bottle Theron took another drink, grimacing as it burned a pathway down to his gut. He held the bottle up and gave it a little shake, realizing that it had gone from full to more than three-quarters empty in the time it had taken him to walk from his room out to the cliffside berths where the spaceships were located. He didn’t feel drunk enough to have consumed that much, but the proof was there in front of his eyes.

He sighed and took another drink, mind shifting gears.

Vector. Someone else he was letting down on a regular basis. The Joiner had been so patient with Theron. In all the time since he’d been back on Odessen, not once had the other man complained about anything he’d done, even when his nightmares had kept them both up or when he’d finally moved into his own room and spent days – and nights – avoiding him because he just couldn’t bear to see the sorrow and fear on the other man’s face. Theron had been positive that having Miranza back would fix everything, and yet in spite of a few good moments together things still seemed to be falling apart.

A smarter man – a better man – would end things with both of them. Vector and Miranza’s lives had been better before he’d crossed their path. The Empire would have left them both alone. Stars, Amrielle and the fucking Star Cabal would’ve left them both alone if it hadn’t been for him. Miranza would never have had to sell her soul to save Theron and Vector would never have ended up being the one left to pick up all the broken pieces. A stronger man would end this. A stronger man would cut them both loose.

Theron drained the bottle and reflected on the fact that he was not a strong man.

“So, hey, I was thinkin’ –”

Acting on reflex to the unexpected sound of a voice inside the ship, Theron hefted the empty liquor body and tossed it as hard as he could down the hall. His aim wasn’t at its best, but the bottle smashed into the wall beside Ryshan Esselby’s head, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. Ryshan let out an undignified yelp and raised his hands in surrender, ducking behind the doorframe until he was certain Theron had no more projectiles as his disposal.

“Shit, Theron, what the fuck was that?” the smuggler demanded, poking his head out. His nose, Theron was pleased to see, was red and swollen, and he had two black eyes as a result. It was a good look on him.

“How the fuck did you get in here?” Theron demanded, heaving himself up off the bed and staggering towards the door. He tried for an angry glare but it was difficult, considering there seemed to be two Ryshans and they were both smirking at him. The room was a little spinny, too, making it hard to focus. Of course, that had been the point to getting drunk: so he wouldn’t _have_ to focus on anything.

“Door was open,” Ryshan said, shrugging. He held up a bottle of top-shelf whiskey, holding it out to Theron. “You were in a shitty mood earlier. I thought I’d come and cheer you up.”

For a moment Theron just stared at him, awestruck over how blissfully oblivious the other man could be. Ryshan was acting like nothing had happened, like this was just another evening on Odessen and there was nothing unusual about Theron punching him in the face or screaming at him. Had he somehow completely forgotten what had happened in Breaktown? Had he failed to notice how pissed off at him Theron was? How upset Theron was? “Shitty mood” barely even began to describe how Theron felt right then.

And yet … He no longer felt shitty. He wasn’t scared or nervous or jittery. His ears were no longer ringing and his hands were no longer trembling and looking at Ryshan didn’t make him sick or angry. He just felt … empty. Drained. _Used up._ He was exhausted, tired of fighting himself and every other Force-damned thing the galaxy saw fit to throw at him. Just once he wanted something – any fucking thing – to be easy.

Ryshan Esselby was an asshole, but he’d always been easy.

Embracing that numb, empty feeling, Theron moved towards the door and Ryshan. The smuggler’s eyes narrowed as he watched him, Ryshan going wary and watchful even as he made an obvious effort to remain loose and relaxed. Theron snaked the whiskey bottle from Ryshan’s hand and brought it up to his mouth, savouring the burn and the rich, peaty aroma. It was the good stuff, top-shelf; either Ryshan had stolen it or it had been part of his payment from Hylo Visz.

Theron wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t.

One hand still on the bottle, Theron used his other hand – the one with the bruised and bloodied knuckles – to slam Ryshan back against the bulkhead. Ryshan’s breath escaped in a soft whoosh of air and his green eyes went wide as Theron closed in, his fist tangled in the front of the smuggler’s shirt. If Theron had been capable of feeling anything he might have found Ryshan’s surprise gratifying, but as it was he barely cared about anything other than the fact that Ryshan was there while Miranza and Vector were _not._

Theron took another drink, some of the whiskey running out to trickle down over the stubble on his chin. Ryshan’s eyes followed the trail but Theron’s hold on his shirt, pushing him back into the bulkhead, kept him at a distance. Theron hauled Ryshan around until his back was to the captain’s quarters, then used his grip on the other man’s shirt to propel him backwards into the room.

“Fuck it,” Theron said, loudly and distinctly, and when he kissed Ryshan hard on the mouth he made sure it hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title comes from the song by the same name by Meat Loaf.
> 
> As a note, I am _not_ updating the tags to reflect Theron/Ryshan. This isn't a relationship and it sure as hell isn't romantic. This is Theron hitting rock _fucking_ bottom. This isn't Crumpet trying to redeem an abusive rapist. Ryshan is an asshole and Theron is fucked up.
> 
> I'm gonna go hide now. Please don't set me on fire. I'm sorry.


	45. Ain't Born Typical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three different attempts at resolving the same problem, courtesy of three very different people.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The infirmary was quiet in the sense that it was no longer busy, the hustle and bustle of the day-shift toned down to enable the few overnight patients the chance to rest and recover. Most of the staff were volunteers, doctors whose hospitals had been destroyed by the Eternal Empire and medics who had seen too much frontline fighting and needed to be away from the constant threat of violence. Odessen was a safe haven – for the time being, at least – and while the infirmary was frequently crowded and bustling, the majority of the injuries treated were of the minor variety and illnesses tended to be rare. Vector was one of the few patients who had arrived in need of serious medical attention, and he was already healing at a far more rapid rate than the doctors were accustomed to, courtesy of his enhanced Killik Joiner physique.

He could smell the bouquet Milo had brought him. It sat on his bedside table in the little vase provided by one of the nurses, replacing the small glass Oriana had found. The flowers had recovered somewhat and their fragrance made him think of sunshine and nectar. It made him miss the hive, but in a quiet, homesick sort of way. He was so far away from the other Killiks, the other Joiners. Odessen was nothing like Alderaan and it was hard, sometimes, being the only Joiner there.

Vector felt tired and worn thin. The visit with Oriana had done him some good, but the act of opening up to her had been draining in a way that combat and life or death situations never was. Afterwards she had – with his permission, of course – spoken with the doctors and healers attending him, and had been able to offer up some suggestions on his treatment. Overall she seemed pleased with the treatment he had received thus far, and he got the impression that she looked forward to meeting Lana Beniko and Senya Tirall to compare notes on Force-healing techniques. Another bout of Force-healing had done much to ease the worst of his aches and pains, especially in the torn muscles in his back; Lana and Senya were good, but Oriana was a healer first and foremost, and her skill far surpassed theirs. He knew that he felt far, far better than he had after his torture on Alderaan, and that his injuries, while painful, were not as severe. He was ready to leave the infirmary, however, and to return to the room he shared with his lovers. The infirmary was far too cold and sterile for his liking; he needed warmth and companionship and sunshine.

He sat up, feeling too restless to continue laying about. He was a better patient than either of his lovers, however, and so he knew better than to leave the infirmary. He eased his way to the edge of the bed and let his legs hang off, lowering himself gently to the ground. The tiles were cool on his bare feet and the act of putting weight on his legs made his back muscles throb, but in a good way, like stretching out after a hard workout. He knew he’d slept a bit between Oriana’s visit and now but he wasn’t able to gauge the time save that dawn was only a few hours away. It had taken him some time to learn the rhythms on Odessen, something that had been innate to him as a Joiner on Alderaan but which had grown confused and muddled from too many planetary shifts and time zone changes since joining Miranza’s crew years ago. The infirmary staff would be changing shifts soon, he knew that much, and with the coming of a new day there would be new patients and new emergencies. And perhaps, if he was a very good little Joiner, the doctor would sign off on his release. Although the infirmary was far from the worst place Vector had ever been he nonetheless felt very much like a prisoner waiting for parole, and he would be happy to see his sentence lifted.

As Vector began doing a small, cautious circuit of the little area around his bed he heard the sound of booted feet padding through the infirmary entrance. His first thought was that it was one of the replacement medics or doctors, coming in early ahead of shift change, but then he heard someone rummaging around in what should have been one of the locked cabinets where the medkits, hyposprays and other medicine were kept. More curious than concerned, Vector made his way to the front of the infirmary, intent upon investigating.

Ryshan Esselby stood in front of the open cabinet on his tiptoes, scrounging around through the assorted hyposprays in search of something. He was so focused on his search, in fact, that he didn’t hear Vector approaching, and so the Joiner had the opportunity to lean up against the nearest wall and adopt a casual pose. He didn’t want the smuggler to take note of his injuries, and the surest way to prevent that was to decrease the amount of effort it took to stay upright.

“Hello, Ryshan,” Vector said, and if there was an underlying growl to the words, well, that couldn’t be helped, now could it?

Ryshan jumped in a most edifying manner, knocking half a shelf of injectors onto the counter below the cabinet. Scowling, he turned away from the medications and affected a calm demeanour, as though Vector hadn’t just startled him. The pilot’s expression was one of smug superiority, and oh how Vector would have loved to have slapped it off.

Then Vector noticed Ryshan’s swollen nose and black eyes, and realized that from the looks of things someone else had already made a good head-start on that. His lips appeared swollen, too, and Vector thought he could see faint bruising along the smuggler’s neck and jaw. _A fight?_ he wondered. _Or something else?_

“Hey, Victor …” Ryshan paused, considering, then corrected himself, “No, Vector, right? How’s tricks? You still with that smokin’ hot blonde? She still do the …” He gestured vaguely yet still somehow managed to make his obscene meaning clear, then turned back to the cabinet, clearly disinterested in whatever Vector’s response would be.

Vector pushed off from the wall, using his momentum to propel himself forward until he was standing directly beside Ryshan. He reached up and slammed the cabinet door shut, narrowly missing Ryshan’s fingers in the process. Ryshan yelped and lunged back, giving his hand a small shake as though assessing it for injury. There was none; Vector had only just missed the tips of Ryshan’s fingers. For all his blustering and bravado the pilot had never been one for pain.

“What are you doing here, Captain Esselby?” Vector asked, careful to toe the line between cool courtesy and outright aggression. He’d had some practice with that as a diplomat, especially in his early days on Alderaan, where the various noble houses were constantly on the lookout for some sort of slight or insult.

“Hangover remedy,” Ryshan replied easily, picking through the injectors that had tumbled across the countertop.

“You cannot simply help yourself to the base’s medicines without getting approval from one of the medics. Supplies are limited here, they’re not yours for the taking.”

Ryshan snickered at that, leaning one hip against the counter and folding his arms over his stomach. His collar was open, and up close Vector could see that some of the bruises he’d noticed before looked more like hickeys than the result of violence. He was rather uncomfortably reminded of something Theron had said, back when Vector and Miranza had spoken to him about Ryshan. _“Rysh likes marking his property.”_ He wondered – in spite of how little he actually wanted to know – whether Ryshan enjoyed being marked in turn. Judging by the state of his neck and the smug smile on his face, the answer appeared to be yes.

“Relax, bug-man,” Ryshan said, still smirking. “I just wanted to see if there was any of the good stuff. Nobody was here so I figured I’d help myself. It’s no big deal.” He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially, and added, “I’m in a bit of a hurry – there’s a sweet thing waiting for me back at the ship.”

Vector didn’t know why he said it. Years of service as a diplomat and as part of an Intelligence operative’s crew should have taught him better than to run his mouth off just because he was tired and angry. And yet the instant Ryshan’s mouth closed, he had to follow the pilot’s half-whispered comment up with, “Presumably this time around your ‘sweet thing’ is willing?” The moment the words left his mouth he regretted them. This wasn’t his fight, it was Theron’s. If Theron wanted to confront his rapist that would be one thing, but it served his lover no purpose to fight his battles for him, and Vector knew Theron wouldn’t thank him for it. It was one thing to stand behind Theron should such a confrontation occur, but quite another to initiate that confrontation himself – and without Theron present.

Ryshan, however, just stared at Vector blankly, his head cocked to one side. After a moment his confusion cleared and he let out an awkward laugh, leaning forward to clap one hand on Vector’s back. Vector hissed, aggravated muscles protesting the contact, but managed to avoid flinching – or grabbing the nearest scalpel and jamming it into the other man’s neck. Such actions would have been satisfying, but the resulting mess likely would not be worth it.

“Still sore about the wife, huh?” Ryshan replied, still chuckling. “Look, bug-man, it was nothing personal. She’s a big girl, she –”

Apparently Vector’s self-control wasn’t nearly as good as he thought it was, because in the next instant he had Ryshan by the throat and was pinning the other man against the cabinet.

“Not our _wife,”_ he hissed, lifting the smuggler up so that only the toes of his boots scraped the ground. His arm and entire back screamed in protest but the pain was easy to ignore in the wake of his extreme wrath. “Our husband. _Theron.”_ He lifted Ryshan a little higher, taking savage glee in the way the smuggler’s face was beginning to turn red. “You raped him. You got him drunk and you took advantage of him.”

It took a few seconds before Vector realized Ryshan was trying to choke out a response. Grudgingly he lowered the man to the floor and released his hold on his neck. Ryshan stumbled back against a nearby cooling unit, one hand going to his throat, the other waving dramatically. He coughed and gasped and took several tries to clear his throat before he finally managed to sputter out a reply, and even then the words came out garbled:

“Theron’s your … I never … I swear I didn’t –” Ryshan blinked a few times, his face starting to go back to its usual colour although his eyes were wide and reddened. “Look, we’re both drunk, but I didn’t do anything he didn’t wanna do. Trust me, he’s still good to go this morning.”

At first the meaning of his words was lost on Vector, swallowed up behind the red rage that threatened to overtake him. But then the Joiner began to connect the dots – the hickeys on Ryshan’s neck, the ‘sweet thing’ supposedly waiting back for the captain back at the ship, the fact that he was using the present tense to refer to Theron – and Vector found he did not much care for the picture.

The urge to grab Ryshan by the throat again and just keep on squeezing until the man’s head burst like a ripe melon was almost more than Vector could stand, and he seriously weighed the pros and cons of simply murdering the smug bastard where he stood. How badly could the Alliance possibly need him, really? Vector knew the pilot worked for Hylo Visz, but surely there were other pilots in the Alliance – better pilots, better people? If he murdered Ryshan Esselby here and now, what would it cost the Alliance? Was there anyone - _anyone_ \- who would even care? And how satisfying would it be, to put an end to the man who had caused Theron so much grief and suffering, who had somehow managed to reaffirm every negative belief Theron had ever had about himself? Vector was not one to waste a life, but Ryshan’s death - would it even _be_ a waste?

Then Vector thought of Miranza, sitting alone in the brig until Jedi Master Savarr sorted out what he wanted to do with her, and of Theron, who needed to have at least one partner free to move about the Odessen base without fear of imprisonment. Yes, Vector could murder a man and hide the crime, but that wasn’t exactly his style. (He’d long ago made peace with the fact that it was most definitely his wife’s style. And Theron’s. How curious, that a man such as himself should fall in love with the two of them.) Most importantly of all, however, was the knowledge that if he killed Ryshan he was going against Theron’s wishes and taking that vengeance away from his lover – if Theron even _wanted_ vengeance.

Perhaps he did not, if he had – for whatever reason – chosen to sleep with Ryshan again. Assuming he had made the choice this time. Assuming Ryshan hadn’t simply taken advantage of him again and Theron wasn’t lying somewhere, battered and bruised and hated himself all over again. That mental image made Vector clench his hands into fists and force them down at his side; the urge to lash out at Ryshan was almost overwhelming, and he had to remind himself - again - that this was Theron’s fight.

“Where is Theron now?” Vector asked, and his voice had never been more calm and composed in his life. His old instructors would have been proud of him.

“I told you,” Ryshan replied. “He’s back on the ship.”

“On _your_ ship?”

“No.” Ryshan shook his head, rubbing at his neck. There was an imprint of Vector’s fingers around his throat, red marks that would likely add to the bruises already present. Vector couldn’t bring himself to regret that. “His ship. The fancy one.”

Vector closed his eyes, but all that served to accomplish was to cause a flurry of mental images to dance behind his eyelids – and all of them involved Theron and Ryshan engaged in carnal activities on the bed Theron shared with Vector and Miranza. He told himself he wasn’t angry with Theron, but it was hard. He and Miranza _had_ made it clear that if Theron had an interest in sleeping with other people, they weren’t going to stop him and that it wasn’t a problem for them. Admittedly, however, Vector had not anticipated that the first person Theron would test that freedom with would be Ryshan _bloody_ Esselby.

_Love, we are going to have a_ talk _about this later,_ Vector thought, opening his eyes again.

He fixed Ryshan with a menacing stare, invoking the full power of his all-black eyes – knowing, from past experiences, how uncomfortable his Joiner status made the other man and how effective his altered appearance could be in intimidation. Sure enough Ryshan cringed in front of him, his own green eyes managing to go wider still.

“Thank you, Captain Esselby,” Vector said, voice as hard and cold as the ice on Ilum. “Now that we’ve had this little chat, let me make one thing perfectly clear to you: You are going to stay away from Theron Shan.”

Ryshan scoffed. “Why in the void would I do that? He’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions.”

_When it comes to you, we are not entirely certain of that,_ Vector thought, but wisely kept it to himself this time. He didn’t know what was going through Theron’s mind – and he still wasn’t entirely certain Theron had made the choice to sleep with Ryshan of his own free will or if he’d been forced into it again – but this wasn’t the first time Theron had demonstrated self-destructive behaviour and poor decision-making skills. He had seemed fine when visiting Vector in the infirmary, but Vector knew better than to rely upon surface impressions when it came to his lovers. When one was in love with a pair of spies, one learned to watch for masks, and to learn to look behind them. And as much as Vector wanted to trust Theron’s judgment, in this particular instance it simply wasn’t possible. He couldn’t conceive of any reason Theron would actively _choose_ to sleep with this man again. The least Vector could do would be to ensure Ryshan stayed the hell away from Theron until Vector could be certain Theron was acting under his own power.

“You are going to stay away from Theron,” Vector said again, “because we are telling you to do so.”

“Or what?” The derision was still in Ryshan’s voice. “You’ll kill me?”

Vector leaned back against the cabinet and permitted a small, slow smile to spread across his face. He knew what his expression looked like and knew that it wasn’t particularly pleasant. It was the face he made when wrapping up difficult negotiations, when facing down torturers, when confronting enemy ambassadors. In his early days as an Imperial diplomat he had perfected that face, knowing that his youth and inexperience would make him an easy target for the Empire’s enemies. Now he had the added weight of his alien Joiner nature – and years of frontline combat experience besides. The naïve innocent young diplomat from Jurio was long gone, and in his place was a dangerous man who was willing to tear the galaxy apart to protect the ones he loved. He was not a man who frightened easily, nor was he inclined to back down on this particular matter. And Ryshan, who made no effort to disguise how uncomfortable he was around Vector, could see it.

“Kill you, Captain Esselby? Don’t be absurd.” Butter wouldn’t melt in Vector’s mouth. “What we will do, however, is speak to Mistress Beniko and have your base privileges revoked. We will then go to Mistress Visz, and suggest that she find other more reliable pilots to handle your routes. After that we will meet with Admiral Aygo and the engineering crew, and arrange to have your ship stricken from the docking registry and repairs schedule. And then, once Odessen is no longer welcome to you, we will use our contacts across the galaxy to ensure no one ever offers you another paying contract. You will recall that we used to serve in the Imperial Diplomatic Corps?” Vector smiled, baring his teeth. “Have you any notion of how many nobles, business owners and merchants we are familiar with? We can scuttle your entire operation in a matter of days.

“And if you go near Theron Shan again, _we shall do precisely that.”_

Letting his smile die, Vector met the pilot’s gaze, and saw the horror dawning on the other man’s face. Death was one thing, but this was the man’s livelihood Vector was threatening, and it had an impact no manner of violent intimations could hope to match. It was a strangely delicious sensation, one he intended to savour for as long as he could. It wasn’t often that he was the terrifying, intimidating person in his relationship.

Realizing that Ryshan seemed stricken in place Vector lifted one hand and waggled his fingers in a dismissive gesture, saying in a quiet tone of command, “You should leave now.”

Ryshan all but ran into the doorframe in his haste to get away.

O o O o O

Felix counted to ten inside his head and then dumped the bucket of cold water onto the bed. Its lone occupant came up sputtering and flailing, struggling to disentangle himself from the sheets before promptly landing on his ass on the floor. Felix was hard-pressed not to laugh when Theron glared at him balefully from the other side of the bed, his drunken stupor fleeing thanks to his impromptu shower.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Felix said cheerfully, bucket dangling from his right hand. He gave the former SIS agent a wide smile. “Get up, get your ass in the ‘fresher and cleaned up, or the next bucket will be fifty-fifty cold water and ice cubes.”

Theron stared at him, no doubt struggling to process the fact that Felix was _there,_ on board the X-70B Phantom, instead of back on Belsavis where he was presumably supposed to be. Not to mention the fact that Felix had just thrown a bucket of water in his face and threatened him with more of the same if he didn’t get his act together. And Felix was fully prepared to go and do so; he felt confident that a fancy ship like the _Mercurial_ would have an ice machine in the galley, or at least some ice cubes in the refrigeration unit. If not, he was prepared to improvise. He’d always been good at improvising.

“What,” Theron began, then cleared his throat and tried again, one hand splayed on the now-soaking comforter as he tried to pull himself to his feet, “What the fuck are you doing here, Iresso?”

“Here, as in on Odessen?” Felix asked, still cheerful. He elected to ignore the fact that Theron was naked, although he couldn’t help but notice more than a few strategically-placed bruises and love bites. Not looking at Theron’s junk dangling in the breeze meant he had to look somewhere, and those bruises were pretty eye-catching. “Or here, as in on your ship?”

“The latter,” Theron groused. “Both. Whichever.”

“I’m on Odessen because your good buddy his Outlanderishness invited Ori and I to join the cause.” Felix debated heading back for more water and ice, but relaxed a little when Theron climbed to his feet and didn’t immediately flop back down onto the bed. The agent was unsteady but at least he was relatively mobile. “I’m _here,_ on your ship, because a good friend asked me to check on his idiot husband.” Vector hadn’t actually gone so far as to refer to Theron as an idiot, but the underlying message had been there. Now, seeing Theron’s discombobulated state and the disaster of the captain’s quarters - and knowing full well neither Vector nor Miranza had played any part in this particular mess - he thought the Joiner had been rather remarkably calm about the whole thing. Granted, Felix’s relationship with his wife was a vastly different one than the three of them shared, but _still._

Theron’s face blanched and he staggered backwards, his knees bumping into the bedframe and causing him to sit down rather heavily. He scrubbed both hands through his hair, sending dark brown stands sticking straight up, then dropped his face into his hands.

“Fuck,” he muttered, words muffled by his palms. He suddenly bolted upright and lurched into the nearby ‘fresher, and Felix was soon treated to the delightful sounds of one Republic spy losing the contents of his stomach into – hopefully – the toilet. Felix waited out beside the bed, having no particular desire to oversee Theron’s vomiting, and considered the state of the captain’s quarters and his hungover friend.

The small cabin was a disaster zone, the mattress half off the bed, the sheets a tangled (and now soaked) mess, articles of clothing strewn across the floor. The room reeked of sex and alcohol, as if Theron and his fuck-buddy had spent the better part of the night screwing inside a whiskey barrel, and the neat, military-minded part of Felix urged him to start tidying up while he had the chance. He bent over and began picking up some of the clothing, folding a pair of trousers before draping them over the back of a nearby chair. The sheets and mattress, he decided, would probably need to be disinfected for a month if not burned outright, and it would take the air-scrubbers a week to get the funk out of the cabin.

“Hand me a towel or a sheet or something, would you?” Theron held his hand outside the ‘fresher door, waiting for Felix to comply. Felix did as he was asked, and was surprised to see Theron drape the towel over the mirror over the sink. As he watched, curious, Theron bent and rinsed his mouth out a few times, then braced his hands on either side of the sink and stood there, head sagging. Even with the towel in place Theron was very careful to avoid looking up at the now-covered mirror.

Theron sensed Felix’s curiosity and sighed. “I’m not … good with mirrors, lately. Okay?” He sounded defensive and spoiling for a fight.

“Okay,” Felix agreed, not rising to the bait. The way Theron said it suggested that this wasn’t a new development for him, that he wasn’t just reluctant to look at his own reflection because of what had happened the night before. Felix’s heart ached for the man; it was clear Theron was struggling – Felix had guessed that, when Vector had asked him to go and check up on the agent – but he didn’t know enough about the situation to know how to help, or even if would be possible for him to do so. Counselling was more Ori’s thing; Felix was just a good listener, most of the time.

“Okay,” Felix said again, clapping his hands together briskly. “Enough wallowing. Get in the shower and clean yourself up, or I’ll hold you in there and scrub you down myself.”

Theron went very, very still, his knuckles going white where his hands were clenched around the edges of the sink. Felix considered what he’d just said and heaved an internal sigh, suddenly aware of the conversational minefield he had just waded into.

“Or I could not do that,” he said quietly, letting a hint of apology creep into his tone.

“That … would be a bad idea,” Theron agreed, voice carefully bland. Without another word he headed into the shower stall and closed the door. After a few seconds Felix heard the sound of water running, and he ducked back into the captain’s cabin to retrieve another towel. While he waited for Theron to finish his shower he set about putting the room to rights, shoving the mattress back into place on the frame and kicking the soiled sheets into a pile on the floor. He was just in the process of folding the rest of the discarded clothing when Theron came back out, towel wrapped around his waist. His colour was better and he no longer looked like a stiff breeze might knock him over, but there was no mistaking the love bites and hickeys all over his neck, arms and torso. He didn’t so much look like he’d gotten laid as like he’d been mauled by manka cat.

“So … what now?” Theron asked cautiously, sorting through his clothing in search of something clean – or at least, something free of stains – to wear.

Felix went to retrieve the thermos he’d left in the galley, and when he came back to the captain’s quarters Theron had donned an old T-shirt and a pair of trousers and was just beginning to fight his way into socks and boots. Felix waited for him to finish, then poured a cup of caf – black, unsweetened – and held it out to him. Theron took it and stared dubiously at the contents for a few seconds before downing the entire drink in about two gulps. Felix poured him another.

“Now we’re gonna go for a hike while you sober up,” Felix informed him, watching as this time around Theron sipped his caf. When Theron glared up at him Felix held up one hand, forestalling any arguments. “Nuh-uh, no bitching. I could be making you go for a run, but I’ve decided to take pity on you.”

Theron gave him a mutinous scowl over the rim of his cup. “You’re not the boss of me.”

The former spy sounded so much like Felix’s seven-year-old son that the soldier nearly burst into laughter. Recognizing that Theron would appreciate neither the sentiment nor the loud noise, Felix simply shook his head and sighed.

“No, you’re the boss of you,” he agreed, shrugging. “You’re just doing a piss-poor job of it right now.” He leaned up against the doorframe and took a swig of caf directly from the thermos, swallowing before continuing, “Look, Theron, I know you’ve got some shit to work out, and you don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to. But if you do wanna talk, I’m here, okay?”

“Sure.” Theron snorted in derision. “It’s just that easy, right?”

“I dunno.” Felix shrugged again and set the thermos down on the counter. “I don’t know what you’ve been through. I don’t know what’s going on inside that brain of yours. I just know that this?” He gestured vaguely towards the bed. “Probably isn’t helping.”

Theron sighed, his shoulders sagging. He stared at the ground for a few beats before meeting Felix’s gaze. “Fine. Let’s go for a hike.”

Outside the Odessen morning shone bright and clear. Theron winced at the onslaught of sunshine but kept his complaints to himself, mustering up a half-hearted thank-you when Felix handed him a couple of myocaine tablets and a pair of sunglasses. Theron dry-swallowed the painkillers and donned the sunglasses and obediently fell into step behind Felix as the other man took off down the path that led away from the ship berths.

This close to the base it was an easy hike: a path had been cleared between the berths and the base itself, and there was another, narrower path that led down into the nearby canyon. Felix took his time, choosing his steps carefully, and he noticed Theron doing the same. The younger man was clearly uncomfortable, although whether it was the lingering vestiges of his hangover, embarrassment over the circumstances under which Felix had found him, or whatever tangled bags of cats that passed for his brain, Felix didn’t know. Felix chose to hike in silence for a little while, hoping the clean mountain air and the warm sunshine would do for Theron what mindless sex and wallowing in misery could not.

It was too early for morning drills and so Felix and Theron had the path to themselves. Felix took them away from the base, down along a narrow stream; he hadn’t had any time to explore between landing on Odessen and getting conscripted to babysit Theron, so he had no real idea of where he was going save that it was quiet and private and, to his mind, much more welcoming than being cooped up inside the command centre all day. Theron followed him, picking his way carefully over exposed roots and small rocks, still too hungover for his usual acrobatics.

The two men reached a small clearing centred around a handful of small boulders, their surfaces worn smooth with age. Theron went and immediately sank down atop the nearest rock, removing the borrowed sunglasses so that he could rub tiredly at his eyes. Felix took a seat opposite him, holding out a canteen of water which Theron gratefully accepted.

“I was kidnapped,” Theron said, out of nowhere. Felix stiffened briefly, caught by surprise by the sudden confession, then forced himself to relax as the other man continued, “There was … There is this woman who has a vendetta against me. Me and Miranza. And she – her name is Amrielle – she arranged for … for an auction. For me to … to _be_ auctioned.”

Felix nodded, taking the canteen back. “Okay.” The idea of someone being auctioned off like property made him feel slightly sick, but this was Theron’s story and Theron had survived it. If he could stand to talk about it, Felix could stand to listen.

Theron swallowed, looking down at his hands. Felix could see that they were shaking, ever so slightly.

“She sold me to a Sith. _Darth Jadzira.”_ The way Theron spoke, it sounded like the name was painful, like it physically hurt him to ground the words out. “She … the Sith … she … It was bad. It was … and I … I don’t know how to talk about this, okay?” Felix nodded again, giving him a smile that he hoped was encouraging but probably fell somewhat flat. Theron’s hands were shaking in earnest. “It was like every bad nightmare and every bad experience I’d ever had were wrapped up in one big ball of misery, and she … Amrielle … she _knew_ that that’s what it would be like for me. She did it on purpose. She picked _her_ on purpose. And so, in order to … to save me … Miranza made some kind of deal. She … _Fuck._ She traded herself to another Sith lord, and that Sith – Darth Occlus – made her into … into a weapon … and that’s how they got me back. And now Vector’s in the infirmary and Miri’s in the brig and … everything’s fucked up, Felix, and I keep fucking up and … and …” He trailed off and stared down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them again and again.

The words were garbled, confused, and Felix got the impression that Theron was leaving out a lot of information, making the story nigh-impossible to follow. But what Felix did understand was that Theron was hurting, that Theron had been _made_ to hurt, to _suffer_ , and that in spite of his rescue there was a part of the agent that was still trapped in Darth Jadzira’s custody. That he also blamed himself for whatever was going on with Miranza was obvious enough, but Felix didn’t know enough about that situation to know whether or not Theron was right to accept the blame. He doubted it very much.

“And last night?” he asked gently. Felix already knew the relationship between Theron, Vector and Miranza was a complex one. Complex – not complicated. But from the way Vector had requested his assistance he didn’t think the Joiner was upset with Theron for sleeping with someone else outside their little triad, and so Felix didn’t consider it his place to judge what Theron had done. The impression he had gotten from Vector was not so much “our boyfriend is cheating on us” as it was “help him before he hurts himself more.”

_“Fuck.”_ Theron sank his hands into his hair, tugging on the short dark strands. “They’re going to be so angry with me.”

“I think,” Felix said carefully, sensing that the ‘they’ in question were Vector and Miranza, “they’re far more concerned about you than they are angry. Did this … person … take advantage of you? Did he hurt you?”

Theron chuckled, a dark, bitter sound that didn’t have a single drop of mirth or humour in it. “Not this time.”

Sucking in a startled breath, Felix sat forward on the rock, his hands pressed flat to his thighs to keep them from curling into fists. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of Theron’s statement, but the bleak expression on the other man’s face made it clear it was nothing good. Theron had the sort of defeated, beaten-down appearance Felix had seen too many times among his fellow refugees on Rehemsa and on the faces of prisoners and their children on Belsavis. The agent hadn’t been so battered and overwhelmed the last time Felix had seen him, in spite of everything he and his two lovers had been through, and Felix had to wonder just what had been the final straw.

He wished Ori were there. She was so much better at this sort of thing - at providing advice and comfort. He was more the sort to go out and tackle the problem head-on, but that wasn’t what Theron needed here.

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Felix said, speaking slowly as the thoughts came to him. “You’re obviously worried about what Miranza and Vector are going to think, but what do _you_ think? Did you _want_ to sleep with that guy? Do you _want_ to get wasted all the time? Is _any_ of this helping you?”

Theron blinked at him a few times, his hands still tugging at his hair. It had to hurt, what with his hangover and all, but that didn’t seem to stop him.

“I was trying to get sober,” he said. “I fell off the wagon after … after …”

“After Darth Jadzira?” Felix asked gently before adding, “Or after you didn’t have Miranza there to support you in your sobriety?” At Theron’s startled expression Felix smiled kindly. “Look, kid – and if I’m talking out my ass here, just say so, but … It’s great to want to be better for other people. I mean, not wanting to let the folks you love down, that’s pretty understandable, and it’s good, as motivation goes. But until being sober is something you want for yourself, I don’t think it’s gonna stick. Y’know?”

When Theron didn’t protest – didn’t try to tell Felix that he was talking out his ass – Felix went on. “As for the screwing around thing, I kinda have a theory about that, too. You wanna hear it?”

“Not especially,” Theron muttered, talking into his hand.

“Tough, ‘cause I’m gonna share it anyway.” Felix stood up and stretched, turning away to admire the way the sun shone through the trees and over the Odessen base. He felt Theron didn’t need his intense scrutiny when he made his next statement, because it was harder than the comments he’d made about drinking and sobriety: “I don’t know what your relationship to sex is like. I got some ideas – former padawan, teen years spent on your own, former spy, stop me if you’ve heard this one before? – but I don’t know. What I’m thinking, though, is this thing? Last night? I think you found the worst person you could – the worst person available – and used them to hurt yourself. Maybe you wanted them to hurt, too. Maybe you were lashing out at Vector and Miranza, ‘cause they can’t be here to help you when you need them and that’s gotta suck. But ultimately, at the end of the day? You’re punishing yourself.”

“That’s … pretty fucked up,” Theron said. Felix couldn’t help but take note of the fact that the other man didn’t disagree with him. _Small victories._

“Yeah,” Felix agreed, turning back to him. “Question is, do you think you’ve done enough, or are you gonna find some other way to self-destruct?”

O o O o O

Frankly, the day had started off shit and had somehow managed to go progressively downhill from there.

Sure, Ryshan had been fine with waking up next to Theron. (As for where he’d woken up, damn, if he’d known the Imps just handed out those sweet ships like candy he would’ve jumped fences years ago!) But Theron had been passed out from the night before and Ryshan already knew from experience that the man wasn’t nearly as much fun to play with when he was unconscious. And to top it all off, Ryshan had woken up hungover and there was nothing on that stupid ship to help a man out. Even the last of the booze was gone, so he couldn’t even self-medicate with a little hair of the dog that bit him.

Then – _then_ – he’d gone back to the base, and that creepy fucking Joiner had been there in the infirmary. Ryshan wasn’t about to admit that the other man had intimidated him, but shit, that fucking bug knew how to hit a man where it hurt. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the big deal was – Theron had said their relationship was open, so where was the harm? – but Vector’s threats were pretty compelling. Ryshan had received the ‘shovel talk’ from friends and protective older siblings and even the occasional parent over the years, but this was the first time that the ‘shovel talk’ didn’t lead to the other person actively threatening his life. No, no, instead Vector had to threaten Ryshan’s livelihood, and somehow that was so much worse.

Now Ryshan was back on his own ship, going through the standard pre-flight checklist, only the fucking sensors were somehow screwed up and the electrical systems were down. It was like the universe was playing some kind of joke on him, and he wasn’t fucking laughing.

The lights kept flickering – and the noise they made, that little low-key buzzing sound? It drove him up the fucking wall – and the life-support kept switching on and off (fine so long as he remained docked on Odessen, but obviously he couldn’t fly like this) and the security systems had given him seven different false positives and he’d only been on the ship for half an hour. Things would’ve been easier if he’d still had a full crew but it had been ages since Ryshan had had anyone more than himself to pilot the light freighter. It almost made him wonder if the Joiner had already followed through on his threats to have Ryshan cut off from base repair crews, and if he’d somehow sent someone along to sabotage Ryshan’s ship.

Nobody fucked with Ryshan’s ship. If he found out that fucking bug-man was behind it, he’d feed Vector Hyllus his own entrails.

The lights flickered again before going down to a quarter illumination and the buzzing noise died altogether. There was a loud banging sound somewhere near the cargo hold – it sounded like a piece of plating had come off the walls, landing on the grilled flooring – and Ryshan cursed this latest development. This had to be Vector’s doing: the ship had been in perfect condition when Ryshan had docked on Odessen.

“Oh, that is _it,”_ he snarled, climbing out from underneath the navigation computer. He wiped his hands off on his trousers, squinting into the darkness as he made his way towards the cargo hold. The ship was dark but he knew his baby like the back of his hand.

Something grabbed the back of Ryshan’s jacket and he found himself slammed into the nearby bulkhead. The situation reminded him so much of last night’s exchange with Theron that he had to fight to keep himself from grinning; he hadn’t expected the other man to pay him a visit on his ship, but maybe the day was looking up?

“Theron?” he said hopefully.

“Guess again.” The voice was feminine and familiar, but it wasn’t until the pale, round face was directly in front of him that he recognized her.

“Miranza?”

Up close she looked … different from how he remembered her. She’d done something with her hair, maybe? It seemed lighter, paler. And her eyes were … silver. And glittering. He was pretty sure they hadn’t glittered before. He would’ve remembered something like that.

And the hand suddenly clenched around his throat was far, far stronger than Ryshan remembered. Stronger even than Vector’s had been, and that freak had had one hell of a grip.

“Hello, Ryshan,” Miranza purred. Any other time and that voice would’ve had him hard in an instant, but at the moment – her impossibly strong hand squeezing around his throat, the ship plunged into darkness around him – he was doing his best not to wet himself. “We need to have a little chat about Theron Shan.”

Striving for nonchalance rather than pants-wetting terror, Ryshan affected a sigh. “Look, Miranza, your creepy bug-husband already –”

Ryshan was lifted a few feet off the ground, his boots scrabbling to find purchase. This wasn’t possible. This shouldn’t be possible. He well over a foot taller than Miranza and outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, easily, and while he’d long known she was in fantastic shape she was human and tiny and this just wasn’t _possible._

“Vector,” she hissed, those strange eyes flashing, “and Theron are good people. _I_ am not. You’re going to stay away from Theron, or it will not be him or Vector you need to worry about, but _me.”_

“I swear, I swear I won’t hurt him –”

Ryshan felt himself yanked forward by the neck, then slammed back hard against the bulkhead. His head hit the durasteel plating and he saw stars.

“You’ve _already_ hurt him,” Miranza snapped, her grip on his throat tightening until he felt his breath cut off. His eyes bulged, his hands clawing at her arm, desperately trying to break her hold on him. She released him, so suddenly that his knees gave out and he collapsed to the deck, gasping for breath while she knelt over him.

“I could kill you right now and not bat an eye,” she told him, her face so close to his that he could feel her breath on his skin. “I should have killed you the last time I saw you. The only reason I’m not killing you now is because Theron doesn’t want us to interfere.”

Ryshan let out a hoarse cough that was meant to have been a laugh but came nowhere close. “This … uh … this seems kinda like interfering, don’t you think?”

Miranza’s laugh was far more recognizable – and far more menacing than her snarling and hissing had been. “Do you intend to tell him?”

“Uh … no.” Ryshan coughed again, rubbing one hand over his throat, wishing he could stand up and stare her down but knowing his legs wouldn’t support him. He met her gaze and tried once more for bravado. “Lemme guess, I go near him and they’ll never find my body, right?”

Another laugh. Miranza stood, seeming to tower over him despite her own short height.

“Oh, they’ll find your body, all right.” She patted him on the head, then sank her fingers into his hair and used that grip to yank his head back, baring his throat. Under different circumstances he would have been turned on by that kind of rough play, but his body was still torn between fight or flight mode, with the bulk of his instincts weighing heavily towards run like fuck. She leaned in close and murmured into his ear, “After I’m done with you the first responders who find your corpse will have nightmares for months.”

She released him again and straightened up, brushing her hands together as though cleaning them off. She turned around and headed towards the gangway, leaving Ryshan crumpled on the ground, still trying to catch his breath.

“Have fun fixing your ship, Ryshan,” she threw back at him, letting out a nasty laugh.

Then Miranza was gone and Ryshan was alone on his ship, trying very hard to pretend he wasn’t sitting in a puddle of his own urine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from a lyric from "U.R.A. Fever" by The Kills.
> 
> Not gonna lie, this chapter was immensely satisfying to write and that mental image of Miranza's "Hello, Ryshan" was what inspired me to return to this fic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.


	46. Devil’s Backbone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences, ultimatums and revelations.

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The Alliance base was on full lockdown when Caedan got the call that Miranza Gerrick had just walked back into the brig of her own volition. He took off at a run, scarcely even noticing the concerned faces that blurred as he raced past, and when he reached the brig he saw that the reports were true: Miranza was standing calmly in the centre of a squad of armed and angry soldiers, her hands raised and a faint smirk on her face as though her midnight jaunt out of her cell wasn’t a big deal.

Or perhaps, he realized, seeing how careful she was to avoid spooking the guards who had their weapons trained on her, she did know.

The sight of her, insouciant, smirking like it was all a joke, filled Caedan with inexplicable rage. In the back of his mind he could hear Valkorion clamouring at him, the dead emperor’s own anger serving to bolster Caedan’s. How dare she? How _dare_ she? It felt as though that woman’s every action and interaction on Odessen was undertaken to undermine him, as though she had come to the Alliance base for the sole purpose of causing trouble and pissing him off. First there were those three men she had killed the day she arrived – assassins, yes, there to kill him, but still, three men were dead because of her. Then there was that moment in the makeshift cargo crate brig, when she had taunted him by demonstrating just how ineffectual their security measures were against her. Then everything that had occurred on Nar Shaddaa, from the casual way she cut through their enemies to her mysterious survival to the two dead medics and her unequivocal desire to finish off the third. And now this: somehow slipping free of the brig – under the watch of two trained soldiers – and disappearing to do Force knew what, then reappearing as though she’d just taken it upon herself to go for a harmless little stroll.

_She undermines your power,_ Valkorion snarled in the back of Caedan’s mind. His anger fed Caedan’s anger, and it was difficult for the Jedi to pretend he didn’t believe what his unwelcome passenger was saying was true. _Look at her. She’s taunting you._ This disobedience, this arrogance - it couldn’t be allowed to continue, not if he was to be the Commander of this Alliance, not if he was to ensure the Odessen base was safe. Miranza wasn’t safe, she was a spaceship-wreck waiting to happen.

Caedan pushed through the soldiers – they fell back the moment he came within a foot or so of them – and before he even had time to think about what he was doing his gauntleted hand was on Miranza’s shoulder, yanking her about.

The next thing he knew he was on his knees, one arm twisted behind his back and the edge of a very sharp blade digging into the skin just below his Adam’s apple. His free hand fell to the hilt of his lightsaber. There was an audible click and Miranza went very, very still, her hand clamped around his wrist and her knee jabbing into the small of his back. He managed to look up enough to see the barrel of a blaster rifle pressed against her temple. At this range, even with her skills and superhuman stamina, the shot would kill her.

“Stand down,” Caedan gasped against the blade to his throat. Then, in a stronger voice, _“Stand down!”_

The other soldiers – the ones still aiming their rifles in Miranza’s direction – immediately lowered their weapons, all save for the one who had his gun aimed at her head. Miranza drew her dagger away from Caedan’s throat, the blade disappearing as though it had never existed, and Caedan sucked in a deep breath. Something warm and wet trickled down his neck but he resisted the urge to wipe the blood away. Turning slightly, he looked at the guard who had drawn on Miranza and saw that the man’s eyes were wide and the hand on the trigger was shaking ever so slightly.

“That means you, too, soldier,” Caedan said softly, not wanting to spook the man and risk him shooting Miranza in the head.

The soldier blinked a few times, his throat working as he swallowed, and then, as if only just now noticing the weapon in his hands, lowered the rifle and stepped back. Miranza relaxed minutely; if she hadn’t been right up against Caedan he wouldn’t have noticed. Caedan stood, taking great pains to telegraph every move, and shifted around until he was facing the former Imperial agent.

“I take it by your presence here in the brig that you intend to go quietly and peacefully?” he asked. He kept his hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, his eyes on Miranza’s face. If she so much as _twitched_ in a way he didn’t like he was prepared to take her down.

Miranza started to nod but seemed to think better of it, instead saying simply, “Yes.”

“Good.” Instead of taking her by the arm again – since that hadn’t worked out terribly well for him the last time – Caedan gestured for her to precede him, and after a moment Miranza did nod. Walking with her head held high towards her cell, Miranza exhibited the kind of regal grace Caedan might have expected from a queen – or a Jedi Master.

Once Miranza was back in her cell and the force-field reactivated – although at this point it was little more than a polite fiction that it could hold her – Caedan waved off the soldiers, thanking them for their service and sending them away. The guards were still jumpy, especially the one who’d had his blaster to Miranza’s temple, and he didn’t want to risk things escalating again. The majority of the soldiers departed, save for two who took up positions by the main entrance. They all had their hands on their weapons and Caedan was keenly aware that one wrong move would result in violence and bloodshed. A _lot_ of bloodshed. In the back of his mind Valkorion was still calling for blood and Caedan had to force himself to ignore the dead man; it took a number of deep breaths before he really felt himself under control again.

“I figured you’d be halfway to Nar Shaddaa by now,” he said, once he felt calm enough to speak. He stood in front of the reactivated force-field, feeling its energy buzzing lightly over his skin.

“I wasn’t going to Nar Shaddaa,” Miranza replied simply. She had settled herself on her bench, seated facing the force-field, her feet on the ground and her hands resting lightly on her thighs. To Caedan’s practiced eye it seemed she was aiming for a calm, casual appearance, but he could see the underlying tension in the way her fingers twitched and in her watchful, wary gaze.

“Why not?”

Miranza sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I needed to take care of something here on Odessen.”

“Okay, I’ll bite: What did you need to take care of, Miranza?”

Instead of answering him directly, Miranza cocked her head to one side and gave him a frankly curious look. “What would you do if you knew for a fact that there was someone on Odessen who had hurt someone you cared for?”

Caedan blinked, then decided it couldn’t hurt to play along. “I guess that depends on the circumstances. If I could prove it – prove that they’d hurt this other person – then I’d haul them in here and bring them up on charges. If I couldn’t prove it, then I’d figure out some way to find evidence and keep the person I cared about safe from them.”

“There’s no evidence. The abuser is trusted, useful, provides the Alliance with much-needed supplies or information or other services. The victim won’t come forward and doesn’t want anyone to know. What then?” She spoke with clinical detachment, but Caedan suspected there was nothing clinical or detached about how she was feeling. This wasn’t a hypothetical situation she was discussing with him, this was something that was real and ongoing and it angered him to realize he had no idea what she was talking about. The Odessen base was small and gossip usually traveled quickly, but Caedan hadn’t heard anything about any of the Alliance members causing harm to anyone else. It wouldn’t have been tolerated, not if he’d known.

“I don’t know.” Caedan sighed, scratching at the stubble growing on his chin. He was overdue for a shave. “I guess the best I could do would be to keep my loved one away from this person.”

Miranza met his eyes. “And if your loved one won’t stay away from them?”

“I don’t know,” Caedan said again, hating that answer but knowing it was the best he had to give. He wasn’t the sort to take the law into his own hands. Jedi were not intergalactic police officers, they were peacekeepers and protectors. He couldn’t just imprison – or worse, kill – someone simply because he suspected they might be a threat. That wasn’t the way he did things. “Is this about Vector? Theron?”

“There’s someone on Odessen who is a threat to Theron,” Miranza said, looking away again. “I took care of them.”

_You’re the threat to Theron,_ Caedan thought, his close proximity to the Imperial once again reminding him of how much she unsettled him, of how _wrong_ she was. He was amazed that no one else could see it. Out loud he said, tone dull, “You killed them.”

“I didn’t, actually.” She sounded surprised by her own answer, surprised and more than a little amused. “Although I won’t hold back if they hurt Theron again. I think I made that perfectly clear.”

Caedan turned away, needing a break from her intensity. It made him ill at ease to have his back to her but he didn’t think she would actually try something against him. Even facing away from her he was uncomfortably aware of her presence in the Force, that dark, roiling miasma that seemed to cling to her. Valkorion was no longer calling for her head on a platter, but even without the Sith emperor’s presence in his mind Caedan knew that he was well past the point where he could let her behaviour slide. He was beginning to care for Theron and he respected Vector, but Miranza Gerrick was a loose cannon, a ticking timebomb, and the Alliance was far too fragile – and the stakes far too high – for him to continue ignoring that fact.

“Miranza,” he said at last, turning back to her, “You can’t stay here.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, standing up. “I was getting tired of this –”

“No,” he interrupted, forcing himself to meet that strange silvery-blue gaze. “You can’t stay _on Odessen.”_

O o O o O

Of all of his advisors, Caedan had not expected that it would be Lana Beniko who would blow up at him over his edict.

“You cannot simply send Miranza away from Odessen,” the Sith lord was saying, her golden eyes flashing. “After all the things she’s done for this Alliance, all the things she’s sacrificed, you cannot repay her with exile and isolation.”

Caedan had called an emergency meeting of Alliance command, inviting his core advisors into the cantina’s back room where they sat – or stood and paced, in Lana’s case – around the table. Lana was furious, Koth and Senya seemed unsurprised, and Theron, who Caedan had expected an angry outburst from, was strangely silent. He had considered calling in everyone, but the room was too small and really, he didn’t need to hear Bey’wan Aygo or Hylo Visz or the others on this. Lana, Koth, Senya and Theron had been there from the beginning; it was their voices he needed to hear, their questions and concerns that needed to be addressed.

“She won’t be alone,” Theron said quietly, hands clasped around a mug of caf. He met Caedan’s gaze, expression flat and unwelcoming, before adding, “If she’s gone, you know Vector and I go with her.”

Lana sucked in a breath, horrified. “You would leave the Alliance?”

“Hey now,” said Koth, holding up a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Nobody said anything about leaving the Alliance.” He glanced at Caedan for confirmation. “Right? You’re not kicking Miranza out of the Alliance, just … off of Odessen?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Caedan confirmed. “I’m not kicking her out of the Alliance. I’m not kicking _anyone_ out of the Alliance.”

“Nice.” Theron leaned back in the booth and folded his arms across his chest, still glaring at Caedan. If anything his expression had become even more openly hostile. “You’ll keep her on the payroll – keep _using_ her – but only if she’s kept at a nice, safe distance, right? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out there? To do the kind of work we do and not have a safe haven to return to when shit goes south? Because in case you hadn’t noticed it yet, Caedan, shit _always_ goes south.”

“She’s dangerous, Theron!” Caedan wanted to grab the other man by the shoulders and shake him until he understood just how serious this was. He wasn’t doing this because he disliked Miranza, or because he thought it would get him an in with Theron - if anything, he suspected that exiling her from Odessen would scupper any shot he might have with the SIS agent. He’d be lucky if he and Theron remained on speaking terms after this, but the Alliance - and the safety of its people - was more important than any potential feelings he might be developing for Theron Shan. And it was more important than Theron’s desire to protect his partner. If banning Miranza resulted in the loss of Theron and Vector, well, it was unfortunate, but Caedan couldn’t afford to let himself back down on this.

“We’re _all_ dangerous, Commander,” Senya said diplomatically. She sat on the edge of the booth beside Lana’s pacing form, one hand resting lightly on the Sith’s shoulder as though holding her back.

_She’s dangerous in ways I can’t predict,_ Caedan thought, wishing he could make the others see. _She has powers I don’t recognize and motives I don’t understand._ Out loud he said, “She’s murdered two innocent people – that I _know_ of – and completely ignores any efforts to penalize or restrain her. Stars, yesterday she broke out of her cell so that she could go threaten someone she thought was hurting Theron.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth Caedan regretted them. All the more so when he saw Theron’s reaction: the former SIS operative went very still, his gaze snapping to Caedan’s face, knuckles going white.

“She did … what?” Theron said dully.

Belatedly Caedan realized that while everyone present had known that Miranza had escaped her cell – Force, the entire Odessen base was aware of that little fact – he hadn’t actually told anyone the reason she had given him. In his own defense he had rather assumed that Theron, at least, had already known. Clearly that was not the case.

“She said there was someone here on Odessen who was a threat to you,” Caedan replied, each word seeming like a slap in Theron’s face, judging by the other man’s reaction: Theron flinched, growing increasingly incensed with every word. “She left her cell so that she could take care of them.”

“Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake,” Theron growled, and before anyone could stop him he got up from the table and made his way to the door. Caedan wanted to call him back, to see if he could find some way to mend this breech, but the agent was out the door before he had a chance to open his mouth. He stared blindly at the empty doorway, wishing he could take back what he’d said; wishing, rather, that he had made the decision to discuss this matter with Theron in private. Caedan didn’t know who this other person was - this supposed threat to Theron’s well-being who _wasn’t_ Miranza Gerrick - but it was clear the matter was a sore one and he’d gone and left it exposed to everyone like a raw nerve.

“Should someone go with him?” Koth asked, worried brown eyes fixed on the door. “Talk him down?”

“No,” Lana said succinctly.

“No,” Senya agreed. She looked thoughtful before adding, “They probably won’t kill each other.”

“They haven’t yet,” Lana said with a long-suffering sigh. She hesitated, then tapped her comm and spoke into it, “Has Vector Hyllus been released from the infirmary yet? No? Release him and tell him his wife needs him in the brig.” Three pairs of eyes turned to her but she appeared unruffled.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Koth said, staring at her. “That was cold.”

“If anyone can keep the two of them from doing irreparable damage to each other, it’s Vector,” Lana replied calmly, unconcerned by his reaction. “Force knows, the man has experience in that arena.”

Eyes still fixed on the empty doorway, Caedan scrubbed both hands over his face and resisted the urge to slam his head repeatedly against the table. “Could we maybe go back to the topic at hand? _Please?”_

Lana turned back to him, expression cool, her calm beginning to unravel again. “You mean the topic of costing the Alliance three of its most valuable assets?”

“I don’t … I didn’t … I …” Groaning, Caedan _did_ let his forehead smack into the table, the dull pain serving to ground him a little. He raised his head again and glared at the Sith lord, then let his gaze take in the other two people at the table. He tried to will them all to understand. “Look, I didn’t make this decision lightly. It’s just … She’s dangerous. I honestly and sincerely believe she might be a threat to the Alliance. She’s –”

“Actually,” said a soft, feminine voice from the doorway. Four heads turned as one to see Oriana Zarasa, the Jedi Bar’senthor and Caedan’s former creche-mate, standing calmly, her dark head haloed by the lights from the cantina beyond. Beside her was her husband, Felix Iresso, looking distinctly uncomfortable, one arm curled protectively around his wife’s waist. Felix towered over the plump Mirialan, but it was Oriana who drew the eye, calm purpose bracketing her like a buttress against a storm.

When Oriana saw that she had everyone’s attention she smiled serenely and continued, “Actually, I believe she might be possessed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Devil's Backbone" is by The Civil Wars. You can blame my sister for my recent obsession with them.
> 
> One of the recurring questions I've been asked had to do with Ryshan and why he would be allowed on Odessen. I hope this chapter clears that up somewhat, but the short answer is: Because nobody else knows. The only people who know what Ryshan did are Theron, Miranza and Vector (theoretically Ryshan _should_ know, but hopefully I've made it clear that he's rewritten things so that he's the seducer, not the rapist), and the three of them aren't talking. Theron doesn't want to deprive the Alliance of a potential asset (regardless of what it costs him, personally) and Miranza and Vector don't want to betray his confidence.
> 
> Apologies for the short chapter but I needed it to end here in order to set up the next part. (I'm also running on about 2 hours' sleep and wanted to get this chapter out before I collapse, so ... hopefully it ended up being somewhat coherent.)


	47. Run Me Like a River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Major steps are taken, and Crumpet sucks at summaries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for domestic abuse, I guess? Verbal abuse, some self-harm (kind of?) and violence. (It's complicated.)

_**Odessen, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

In forty-two years of life – half of that spent with the Republic military, a quarter with his wife – Felix Iresso had had many occasions to end up in over his head. From growing up the son of refugees to taking part in the Eight-Hour Invasion of Dubrillion to being taken captive by the Empire on Althir to joining forces with Oriana Zarasa’s crew on Hoth, Felix was accustomed to flying by the seat of his pants and hoping his training would be enough to see him through. Life had only grown weirder once he and Ori got together, and as a result it no longer bothered him to admit that he had no clue what the kriff was going on. Truth be told it had never _really_ bothered him. Life was weird, life was messy, and you learned to roll with the punches if you wanted to make anything meaningful out of the experience.

In fairness, though, he’d been in over his head from the moment he and Ori brought the kids to Odessen, and now, as he stood back and watched people filing into the cavern that housed the Alliance Force Enclave, that feeling was escalating.

Sana-Rae, the red-skinned Voss woman who oversaw the Enclave, had taken up a guard position just outside the door. The Enclave itself was declared temporarily off-limits, and only those approved by Sana-Rae herself or the Alliance Commander could come inside. So far that group consisted of Felix, Oriana, Lana Beniko, Senya Tirall, the Commander and Vector. It was difficult to say whether or not Miranza was “welcome” in the Enclave, given that she was presently restrained in a chair with both Caedan and Felix standing guard over her, but she was present nonetheless, somehow managing to look both harmless and ready to rip a man to shreds at the slightest provocation. The only one not present was Theron, whom Felix hadn’t seen since he’d taken the kid out for a hike the day before; Felix couldn’t help but notice the way that both Vector and Miranza kept looking toward the door, hope and worry written clearly across their faces. He wanted to ask but knew he didn’t need to know; whatever it was it likely had very little to do with the current situation, aside from Theron’s rather obvious absence.

There had been some discussion between Lana, Ori and Vector, but most of it – like everything else that had happened since Felix had arrived on Odessen – went over his head. He tried not to let it bother him that he only understood one word in ten when it came to them talking about Force stuff. The gist of it was, there was something wonky going on with Miranza, the Outlander wanted her off the base, and Ori wanted to help. (Because _of course_ she did. Oriana Zarasa had yet to find a problem she didn’t immediately want to solve.) The main issue, so far as Felix could tell, was that as much as Miranza wanted the help, there was something preventing her from accepting it. She was apparently unable to explain her condition and she’d resisted efforts from Oriana and Lana to investigate her.

Hence the restraints.

Felix didn’t need to be a Force-user to see that something was up with Miranza. She had changed since the last time he’d seen her on Belsavis, and only some of those changes were outward. The platinum hair and silver eyes he could get over – people changed their appearances all the time, and the woman _was_ a spy – but there was more to it than that. She had always been a small woman, short like Ori but more on the slender side, but now she seemed pared down, as though what little excess she had had before had been stripped away. She was worn down, worn thin, made brittle like the crust of ice over snow. He didn’t know what was going on with her, if this was the result of possession the way Oriana had suggested or if there was more to it, but she was vastly altered from the woman he’d met on Belsavis. He hadn’t known her especially well on Belsavis, outside of recognizing another stubborn, world-weary soul, but the version of her he saw on Odessen was vastly different.

She sat in a low metal chair, her wrists bound to the arms of the chair in heavy durasteel restraints, her ankles chained together and a thin band of metal wrapped around her waist to keep her in place. Caedan stood behind her, prepared to hold her down if necessary, while Vector knelt at her side, whispering soothing words Felix couldn’t hear. Both the Commander and the Joiner seemed distinctly uncomfortable although Felix suspected it was for vastly different reasons: Vector, in particular, appeared to be in some minor pain, whereas Caedan looked as though he would rather be anywhere else in the galaxy, up to and including hanging on the wall in Emperor Arcann’s treasury.

“She cannot speak of what Darth Occlus did to her,” Vector had said before Miranza had been restrained. Oriana, Lana and Senya had all tried to ask her for details, but the former Imperial agent had almost immediately choked up and her husband had had to step in to explain. “Her desire to do so is irrelevant: she is physically incapable of answering you. If you wish to learn more, you will need to find some way around this block.”

It was, Felix thought, the restraints that had Miranza on the verge of panicking, although he was certain there was more to it than that. She didn’t want any of the Force-users near her, the fear and mistrust radiating off her so thickly Felix could almost taste it. When Oriana crouched down in front of her Miranza went perfectly still, eyes fixed on the Jedi like a small prey animal fixating on a large serpent that had them in its sights. Ori was powerful - Felix knew that for a fact; he had seen her in action on numerous occasions - but people did not generally stare at his wife as though afraid she was going to devour them. Felix stood back a few feet, close to the exit, and rested his blaster rifle against his shoulder. Even at this distance he could see the way Miranza was trembling, how Oriana approached her as one might a skittish beast about to bolt.

Ori gestured towards Miranza’s left arm, where the sleeve of her shirt brushed the restraint cuff around her wrist. “May I?” His wife’s voice was gentle and warm. Miranza nodded – grudgingly – but still flinched when Oriana pushed the sleeve upwards, exposing the serpentine markings that coiled their way up Miranza’s pale arms.

“These markings …” Oriana paused, ducking her dark head as she considered how best to ask her question. “Are they … all over?”

Miranza nodded curtly, grinding out the words: “My arms, legs and back.”

Oriana ran the tips of one finger over the marks on Miranza’s arm. Felix could see that it was the lightest of touches, and yet Miranza gave a full-bodied shudder and screwed her eyes shut. Her breath was beginning to come in too fast, and Vector leaned in closer, his earlier murmurings giving way to a low-pitched humming sound that Felix felt more than heard. The noise wasn’t musical, exactly, but it was strangely soothing.

“I’m sorry,” Ori said, drawing her hand back again. “Does this hurt you?”

“No,” Miranza said through clenched teeth. Her hands curled around the edges of the arm rests, fingers pressing down hard against the metal. “You can” – she grimaced – “continue, if you’d like.”

“Beloved,” Vector began.

“I’m fine,” Miranza interrupted him before he could say anything further. Her eyes flashed open and she glared at Oriana, although Felix rather suspected she would have preferred to aim her gaze in Caedan’s direction. The Jedi Knight was behind her, however, and Ori was the next best target. “It’s been made very clear to me that my cooperation is not an option. Please. By all means, continue.”

With her back to him Felix couldn’t see his wife’s face, but he knew Oriana well enough to recognize the stubborn set of her shoulders and he could easily guess the expression on her face – especially when her head tilted in Caedan’s direction. She was not pleased. She was very not pleased. Caedan had made it clear that Miranza’s continued presence on Odessen rested on her willingness to deal with whatever Darth Occlus had done to her. Miranza seemed of the opinion that nothing _could_ be done - not without dire consequence, at least - but Vector had convinced her to go along with whatever suggestions Caedan and his advisors could come up with. None of them wanted to walk away from the Alliance - not Miranza, not Vector and not Theron, in spite of his absence - and Miranza was unwilling to go without a fight.

“We’re trying to help you, Miranza,” Oriana said reproachfully, still looking at Caedan. The Commander had the good grace to hang his head, but said nothing. Felix knew his wife was unhappy with Caedan’s ultimatum, but he was the Commander of the Alliance and it wouldn’t do to question his judgments. In public, anyway. Felix suspected the Commander was going to get an earful in private.

Miranza spat out a bitter laugh but did not comment. Instead Felix watched as she made the deliberate effort of relaxing, adjusting and repositioning herself as much as her bindings would allow. Once it looked like Miranza had made herself as comfortable as possible Oriana inspected the markings on her arms again, examining first the left arm, then the right. Miranza did not move, but Felix could tell she was repressing more shudders. She didn’t appear to be in pain, exactly, but her discomfort was obvious. Touching the markings did _something_ to her.

“Not tattoos,” Ori murmured, half to herself. Beside her Senya knelt and peered at Miranza’s exposed arm, running one gloved hand over the marks. It didn’t produce the same response – perhaps because unlike Oriana, Senya’s hands were covered – but Miranza still seemed uncomfortable. Felix couldn’t say that he blamed her; he’d never been a big fan of physical exams himself, and having an audience probably wasn’t helping the spy to calm down. She hadn’t struck him as the shy type, but there was a vast difference between lack of shyness and being an exhibitionist, and having an audience observing something that she was clearly under orders to keep under wraps was something else entirely.

“Do the markings hurt you?” Senya asked. She was frowning, peering as closely at the dark red bands as she could, her face centimetres away from Miranza’s arm.

“Yes,” Miranza ground out, eyes closed again. “All of the time. It’s like …” She gasped, choking, then managed to hiss through clenched teeth, “Like fire under the skin.”

“Her hair and eyes are different,” said Lana, her voice clinical, detached. She had been standing back, letting Oriana and Senya work, but now she gestured towards Miranza. “Before all of this Miranza’s hair was a darker shade of blonde – darker than mine – and her eyes were …”

“Blue,” Vector supplied softly. “Her eyes were bluer than the waters on Manaan.”

Miranza sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. Her husband gave her arm a gentle pat, his thumb stroking along a patch of unmarked skin. Felix could see that the Joiner was very, very careful to avoid brushing his fingers over his wife’s strange markings.

“Any other physical changes?” asked Oriana, pushing back up into a standing position.

Miranza opened her mouth but no sound came out. She tried again, emitting nothing more than a choking sound. Her eyes, opened once more, were filled with anger and frustration. Here it seemed they had reached the limits of Miranza’s ability to discuss the alterations made to her body. It wasn’t nearly enough information for them to come to any workable plans, but they had prepared for this eventuality.

“All right,” said Lana, moving to take Oriana’s place. “Here’s where I take over.”

Just as Lana was settling in – and if anything Miranza seemed to grow even more tense at facing the Sith lord instead of the Jedi Bar’senthor – there was a small commotion behind Felix. He turned in time to see Sana-Rae holding the blast doors open for Theron Shan, who hurried into the Enclave only to pause on the threshold, freezing the instant he noticed all eyes had turned to him.

“Where were you, man?” Felix asked, leaning in so that only Theron could hear him. He jerked his chin in Miranza’s direction, where the woman still sat, her gaze suddenly intent upon the doorway and their newest arrival. “She’s been looking for you.”

Theron’s cheeks flushed but he didn’t look at Felix. Instead he only had eyes for his two lovers.

“I had to take care of something first,” Theron said, speaking to the room. Unlike Felix he made no effort to keep his voice down, and it echoed off the cavern walls. With great deliberation he added, “I needed to sort some stuff out with Hylo.” Then he looked behind Miranza to where Caedan stood, and for a brief moment Felix watched as Theron steeled himself before raising his voice to carry across the Enclave, “Commander, if I wanted someone put on the Odessen no-fly list, would you approve my request?”

“Well, that’d depend on …” Caedan’s voice trailed off and he glanced down at Miranza, who had craned her neck at a nigh-impossible angle in order to be able to look up at him. Her expression seemed very intense to Felix. Caedan blinked, then cleared his throat loudly and said, “You’re not the sort for frivolous requests. Yes, I’ll approve it. The name?”

“Captain Ryshan Esselby,” Theron said, and he walked into the room to stand beside Caedan, behind Miranza. His hands came down to rest upon her shoulders and Felix saw the look Miranza and Vector exchanged; it was difficult to read, but he thought he saw relief – and pride. They were proud of Theron, whoever Ryshan was, whatever the man had done. Felix had some suspicions but now was not the time to discuss the matter.

“Done,” Caedan replied, motioning for Lana to take note. The Sith lord nodded, her own expression suspiciously similar to Miranza’s and Vector’s.

“Thank you.” Theron gave Miranza’s shoulders a light squeeze and smiled down at Vector, who remained kneeling beside her. After a moment Lana resettled herself in front of Miranza, taking a few seconds to make herself comfortable before reaching up to rest her hands on either side of Miranza’s face.

“Deep breaths, Agent,” Lana said encouragingly, her voice warmer than Felix had ever heard it before. It surprised him to realize the Sith lord was fond of Miranza. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Miranza obediently drew in a few slow, steady breaths, but her voice was noticeably shaky when she said, “I’m never going to be ready, Lana. Just do it.”

Lana nodded at her. Felix couldn’t see what she was doing – he couldn’t even tell if there was anything _to_ see – but the change in Miranza was obvious. One moment she was bracing herself for whatever Lana was preparing to do, and the next she seemed to be trying to claw her way free of the chair. Her back arched as much as the band across her midsection would permit, her head thrown back against the headrest, and her hands had curled into claws around the armrests. Her jaw was clenched so tight Felix expected to be able to hear her teeth cracking under the pressure, but instead all he could hear was the high-pitched animalistic keening that she let out.

Caedan moved to take his place back, looking ready to wrestle Miranza back into her seat the moment she burst free, but Theron held firm. His hands remained on Miranza’s shoulders as he leaned in, his lips brushing the curve of one ear. Felix couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could read the shape of Theron’s mouth and understood that the former SIS agent was trying to help his lover control her breathing. It took Felix a few seconds to recognize the breathing exercise, and the moment he did he knew where Theron had learned it – because Oriana practiced the same Jedi meditation techniques at home. Beside them Vector huddled on the floor, both hands running lightly over Miranza’s arm and thigh; even from across the room Felix could hear the low, atonal hum the Joiner was projecting. It was a strangely soothing sound, and in spite of what Lana was doing and the obvious effect it had on Miranza, Vector, Theron and Miranza were collectively relaxing, melting into and against each other as though the three of them were the only people in the Enclave. Under different circumstances Felix might have felt as though he’d intruded on something private and intimate; instead he just felt privileged to bear witness to it.

Whatever Lana was doing it was obviously uncomfortable for Miranza, and after a few minutes a small trickle of blood began dripping from the spy’s nose and over her lips. Vector stretched up and dabbed a handkerchief at the blood but when it showed no signs of stopping he settled back to wait and watch. Felix cast a quick glance in Oriana’s direction and saw that she was observing the situation closely; as yet she showed no indication that she intended to interfere, and he concluded that she was not yet concerned for Miranza’s well-being. As dire as the situation was Felix knew that Ori wouldn’t allow the Imperial woman – either of the Imperial women – to be seriously injured.

It was a lengthy process made all the more interminable by the fact that Felix had no clue what was happening. Lana kept her hands pressed to either side of Miranza’s face and every now and again Miranza would arch or whimper or flinch, but otherwise there was no outward sign that anything was going on. He waited, he watched, and he kept one hand on the strap of his rifle, just in case things went south.

Then, after Force only knew how long, Lana released Miranza and sank back on her heels.

“That sneaky little fraud,” the Sith lord murmured, sounding two parts impressed to one part aghast. She stood, shaking out legs that had gone numb, and began to pace. Felix noticed that Lana, like Miranza, had blood running from her nose; she made no effort to wipe it away.

At first Felix thought Lana was referring to Miranza, but at Caedan’s questioning look she gestured to Miranza and clarified, “Darth Occlus. She’s not nearly as impressive as she’d like us all to believe she is, and this highly experimental procedure she’s performed on Miranza? It’s fraudulent.”

Miranza opened and closed her mouth but no sound came out.

“With all due respect, Lana, we have seen what our wife is capable of,” Vector said, speaking with great precision. He, too, had risen to his feet, but he remained close at Miranza’s side, one hand resting on her shoulder, his pinky finger brushing the heel of Theron’s hand. “We can all see the changes that have been wrought upon her. This is _real._ What has happened to her – it is _all_ real.”

Lana nodded agreeably, but there was a light of almost manic intensity in her strange yellow eyes. “Yes, the _changes_ are real, but the cause, Vector – the _cause_ is fraudulent.” She pointed a finger in Miranza’s direction, then looked at Oriana. “Do you see, Master Zarasa? Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

Ori returned the nod, looking every bit as excited as the Sith lord. “Stars, yes, yes I do see it!” She clapped her hands together, on the verge of jumping up and down like a schoolgirl. Felix might have found her enthusiasm adorable if the situation wasn’t so horrifying. “I was right! Oh, I was right!”

Caedan cleared his throat loudly. “Care to enlighten the rest of us?”

“This isn’t Sith alchemy,” said Lana, carefully and precisely. She looked savagely gleeful, as though she’d caught a much-hated rival out in a lie. Perhaps, Felix reflected, she had. “It’s possession. Darth Occlus couldn’t affect changes through magic, so she shoved some kind of wraith or ghost inside of Miranza, and _that_ is what has changed her.”

“None of this” – Oriana gestured broadly at Miranza – “is alchemical in nature. It’s not magic, it’s not some ‘highly experimental procedure,’ it’s just … Force-possession.”

“But the changes?” Vector pushed.

“Outward manifestations of the entity possessing her,” Oriana answered, as if it were perfectly obvious.

Miranza grit her teeth together, tugging at the restraints. “I can remember the procedures,” she forced out, clearly fighting against something that would have prevented her from speaking. “I didn’t imagine what she was doing to me!”

“You might very well have imagined it,” Lana said. Her tone was surprisingly gentle as she knelt to begin unfastening the chains that bound Miranza’s ankles. “The entity – whatever it is – may have fed you those memories in order to support Darth Occlus’s story. Or she found some way to implant false memories as a means of misdirection, to reinforce the illusion that she was actually successful in her research.”

“She _was_ successful,” Senya clarified, removing the restraint around Miranza’s left wrist before moving on to the right. “Just not at Sith alchemy. She did change you, after all.”

“If the rumours are true,” Lana said carefully, “Darth Occlus has some experience in dealing with Force-ghosts and possession.” She stepped back, letting Vector and Theron help Miranza to her feet. “No wonder she wants all this kept secret, however. She isn’t trying to protect alchemical secrets – she’s trying to cover up the fact that she failed.”

Felix thought this all sounded well and good, but so far as he could tell there didn’t seem to be much difference between Sith alchemy and Force-possession, if what had happened to Miranza was anything to go by. Regardless of the why and how of it, she was changed, and certainly not for the better.

_“Fantastic,”_ Miranza muttered. Once her hands were freed she rubbed at her wrists as she looked from Oriana and Lana and back again. “You do realize she’ll kill you for this, right? The moment word of this gets out, she’ll want you dead. And she’ll definitely be coming to kill me.”

Oriana frowned, pursing her lips together, and from Felix’s vast experience in dealing with his wife he knew that that expression meant she was weighing whether or not to share something she considered particularly difficult or uncomfortable. And as he knew she would, she made the decision to reveal what she knew: “Miranza” – her tone was almost impossibly gentle and compassionate – “Darth Occlus is _already_ killing you. This thing inside you, this Force-ghost – it’s feeding off of you. You’re not Force-sensitive. Where did you think its power was coming from? It’s eating you away inside. This isn’t burning the candle at both ends, this is tossing the candle onto a raging inferno and then adding detonite. There’ll be nothing left of you.”

Vector made a small noise of dismay and drew his wife into his arms. After a moment of hesitation Theron crowded in close, one arm slinging around Vector’s back as he hugged them both together.

“So that’s it, then?” Miranza asked, sounding defeated. Her voice was muffled by Vector’s shirt, her face pressed into his chest. “I’m dead?”

“No, of course not, beloved,” Vector murmured against the top of her head.

“No,” Oriana agreed, eyes shining with excitement. “That’s what we’re saying. This isn’t Sith alchemy. It’s possession.”

Theron cleared his throat, looking mutinous. “Would someone mind explaining things for those of us who _don’t_ have advanced degrees in theoretical Force bullshit?”

Oriana and Lana exchanged smug glances. Beside them Senya folded her arms under her chest, a wry smile tugging at her lips. All three Force-users looked distinctly pleased with themselves, although Caedan – the only other Force-sensitive in the room – still seemed mystified. Felix rather knew how the Commander felt.

“It means,” Oriana said, “that I know how to fix it.”

O o O o O

Things moved quickly after that. Oriana, Lana and Senya sequestered themselves for a brief meeting to discuss how best to proceed while Miranza, Vector and Theron went off to have a private huddle at the far end of the Enclave. Caedan found himself in a short discussion with Sana-Rae that resulted in her recommending to him two additional Force-users: Razjarran, a Pureblood Sith who had joined the Alliance after his master had died from lingering injuries sustained in the early Zakuulan assault on Korriban, and Seffi, a Nautolan Jedi Caedan vaguely recognized from Tython. The two new Force-sensitives joined in on the planning, and then suddenly everything was ready.

Or at least as ready as things were likely to get.

Not for the first time Caedan found himself wishing his skills as a Jedi had gone in the more mystical, esoteric direction that Oriana had chosen. His former creche-mate had explained what was going to happen, but for the most part it made very little sense to him, and judging by their confused expressions Vector, Theron and Felix were as in the dark as he was. Miranza was purposefully being kept out of the loop; it was Lana’s concern – shared, apparently, by both Oriana and Senya – that the entity inhabiting Miranza’s body would be able to somehow interfere with the proceedings if it knew what was going on. Privately Caedan suspected that it was unlikely Miranza would have any better understanding of the details than he did, but he wasn’t about to gainsay Lana’s more expert opinion. Besides, it didn’t matter whether or not _Miranza_ understood, not if her pet monster did.

Watching everyone get set up in the Enclave – Sana-Rae still pulling guard-duty at the doorway – Caedan found himself trying very, very hard not to consider what was about to happen, and whether or not Miranza’s situation was in any way comparable to his own. He didn’t want to draw Valkorion’s interest by focusing on the subject, but there was no ignoring the fact that if Oriana could pull the wraith or entity or whatever out of Miranza, then she might be able to do the same thing for him. For the first time since waking up in Emperor Arcann’s vault with a dead man locked away inside his head, Caedan had hope of finally being free.

Of course, his freedom was dependent on how successful Oriana was, and how similar Valkorion was to the demon inside Miranza. Still, Caedan couldn’t quite contain his excitement at the possibilities. It was only by focusing on the minutiae of their preparations – Vector and Theron searching Miranza for weapons, Felix speaking with Sana-Rae to establish security, the Force-users (sans Caedan himself, who knew he was useless for this sort of thing) going over the plan one more time – that he could keep his mind from obsessing over what this all might mean for him. Miranza being separated from whatever it was that was possessing her was obviously a good thing, but Caedan couldn’t help but be selfishly excited over the prospect of ridding himself of Valkorion once and for all.

Eventually everyone was ready. Oriana instructed Miranza to stand in the centre of the Enclave, with Razjarran and Seffi standing on either side of her. Caedan hadn’t failed to notice the way Miranza, Vector and Theron all stared at Seffi when the green-skinned Nautolan woman joined them; Theron, in particular, looked at her as though he’d seen a ghost, and Caedan wondered if perhaps the former SIS operative had met Seffi way back when he’d first come to Tython. Nobody said anything, however, and Caedan was forced to put the matter out of mind for the time being. The trio didn’t seem to have a problem with Seffi, exactly, they just seemed wary of her, watching her as though they expected her to explode or turn into a wampa at any given moment.

It was Seffi who acted first, conjuring forth a large domed shield that surrounded Miranza, its glowing light shining off her pale hair and strange eyes. The shield was large enough that Miranza had room to pace: Lana’s suggestion, given because she was concerned that the ritual would be physically uncomfortable for Miranza and that being restrained in a chair would exacerbate the situation. Lana’s hope was that giving Miranza room to pace and stalk would help her to feel more comfortable. At the very least Caedan could tell that she was far less anxious about the shields than she had been about the restraints. It seemed strange to him: he was positive she could have slipped free of the restraints any time she wanted to, and yet for some reason being bound to the chair had made her incredibly nervous and fearful. But the shields, which he didn’t think she _could_ get past, seem to give her no trouble at all.

“How’s that?” Seffi asked, once the shield was in place. She had a low, husky voice and a rapid-fire way of speaking; her energy and impatience reminded him of Kira. “Good?”

Miranza took a few experimental steps, measuring out the length of her temporary prison. She nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“Excellent.” Seffi turned to Razjarran and nodded, and the Sith lifted his hands in the air and conjured up a secondary shield, this one made of purple-white lightning that crackled over the golden dome. The first shield, Lana had explained, was meant to keep Miranza imprisoned; the spy had repeatedly demonstrated how easily she could escape more mundane efforts to keep her confined, but the hope was that something created from the Force would prove more resistant. The second shield was a backup for the first and would hopefully serve more as a deterrent: according to both Razjarran and Lana, it should be incredibly painful to try and cross its boundaries. Nobody quite understood how Miranza disappeared and reappeared at will, but with any luck the dual shielding would put a stop to that – or at least make it more difficult.

Oriana and Lana situated themselves side by side in front of the dome, Oriana sitting cross-legged while Lana knelt. Oriana possessed knowledge of a unique shielding technique that could – in theory – disrupt the wraith’s hold on Miranza; Lana would be simultaneously scanning Miranza’s surface thoughts in an effort to ward off potential complications while also using that mental contact to try and drive the spirit away. It was, Lana had cautioned, an exhausting and no doubt intensely uncomfortable experience, and as much as Caedan hoped it might be possible to use it to knock Valkorion loose from his own mind, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to being on the receiving end.

Caedan’s role in all of this was to play watchdog. He and Senya were on the alert in case Miranza managed to break free and make a run for it. (Senya also stood ready to provide emergency Force healing, in the event things went wrong. The biggest concern was that the ritual would prove damaging to Miranza; both Oriana and Lana thought it likely the wraith would try to cause as much damage as possible on its way out.) Felix, Vector and Theron were also ostensibly there as guards, but the truth of the matter was that all three of them had loved ones involved in the ritual and refused to be left out of proceedings. In truth Caedan wasn’t sure what the three of them would be able to do: if Miranza’s wraith proved to be too much trouble for him or Senya to deal with, he didn’t know what the three Force-blind members of the team could hope to accomplish. The question was moot, however, as none of them would leave.

Seffi and Razjarran turned as one and looked towards Lana and Oriana. Seffi gave a curt nod, the beads on her head-tresses clicking quietly, and Razjarran announced their readiness to begin.

Caedan’s Force senses, already feeling the itch and tingle from the two shields, slammed to alert the moment Oriana and Lana began the ritual. He couldn’t tell what Lana was doing, exactly, although it felt a bit like someone was screaming in the very, very back of his mind – and for once that someone wasn’t Valkorion. The sensation made him feel restless, like there were insects crawling down his spine that could only be jostled loose if he moved about; inside the shielding, Miranza began to pace, stalking around the confines of her prison like an ice cat prowling her cage.

“Oh,” Vector said, scarcely audible. “What a curious sensation.” He had taken up position behind Razjarran; he and Theron had both elected to stand near the shielding Force-users, intent upon giving Miranza something – or someone – to focus on aside from her would-be jailers.

“I don’t feel anything,” Felix said, although he shifted restlessly from one foot to the other.

“Me neither,” said Theron. He sounded offended, as though his lack of Force sensitivity was a personal slight.

_Perhaps it is,_ Valkorion mused, much to Caedan’s annoyance. Of course the former Sith emperor couldn’t be relied upon to keep his opinions to himself. _Imagine how magnificent he would have been, had he possessed even an iota of his mother’s potential._

_He’s magnificent enough just the way he is,_ Caedan thought back at him. Valkorion’s answering laugh made him blush, embarrassed at even having had the thought, much less “voicing” it.

Miranza’s pacing increased, her agitation beginning to grow. The screaming in the back of Caedan’s head was growing louder but no less coherent. He hazarded a glance in Senya’s direction and saw that the older woman was gnawing at her lower lip, one hand resting on the staff of her pike. Suddenly Miranza stopped and crouched down in front of Oriana, and the look on her face – illuminated by the golden shield that surrounded her – made Caedan’s blood run cold. She raised one hand and placed it against the shield, pressing down lightly as though testing its strength. She was smiling, but there was nothing friendly or humorous in the expression.

“When I get out of here,” she said, in a low, conversational tone, “I’m going to break little Caia’s neck.”

Felix snarled and started to move closer, blaster rifle already half-unslung and in his hands. Caedan caught him by the shoulder and motioned him back. He’d met Felix and Oriana’s children only a day or so ago; the idea of anyone hurting them made him feel physically ill. Miranza’s expression, however, suggested that it was just an amusing pastime for her, an idle diversion to distract from a boring day.

“That is _not_ our wife,” Vector hissed, coming out from behind Razjarran to take a few steps closer to the shield.

In one swift movement Miranza was standing again, facing her husband. Her features shifted from coldly menacing to what could best be described as pleading, her eyes gone wide with unshed tears. The change was instantaneous, like wiping one mask away to replace it with another. If he hadn’t seen the cruel, cold mask she had been wearing earlier Caedan might have been fooled by this one, so perfect was it.

“Vector?” she murmured, suddenly sounding small and frightened. “Please let me out of here. It hurts. They’re hurting me.”

“Ignore her, Vector,” Theron snapped. Unlike his partner Theron hadn’t moved any closer to Miranza or the shielding. Instead he remained behind Seffi, one hand resting lightly on the butt of his pistol, the other clenched in a fist at his side. Caedan wondered if Theron would be willing to shoot his lover, or if he was simply acting on instinct, preparing to arm himself in case of emergency.

“Oh, please.” Miranza rounded on Theron, face twisting into a mask of rage. Just like that, another mask ripped away, replaced this time by one of disgust and anger. “You think you’re a big, brave man now that you’ve finally made the decision to do something about your rapist?” Caedan blinked, staring at Theron in horror. _Rapist?_ Miranza continued, oblivious to Caedan’s turmoil, “Come now, Theron, you’re not fooling anyone, least of all me. We both know the only reason you’re kicking Ryshan off Odessen is because the moment he so much as bats his eyelashes at you, you’ll be all over him again. A stronger man would’ve killed him by now for all the things he’s done to you, but _you_ – you like it, don’t you?”

“Theron …,” Vector began, but Theron waved him off. His expression was dark and his lips were clamped together as if it were a monumental effort for him to keep from responding to his lover’s tirade.

“And _you,”_ Miranza snarled, turning back to the Joiner. This time the mask remained the same: disgust and anger. “You let Darth Occlus take me, just like you let Alric Ulgo take me, just like you let the Star Cabal take me! And now you’re letting them hurt me, just like you let –”

Seffi snapped her fingers and Caedan felt a surge of Force energy just as Miranza’s tirade was abruptly cut off.

“That was quite enough of that, thank you very much,” Seffi said tartly.

“What did you do?” Felix asked.

“Sound-proofed the bubble,” Seffi replied. She sounded quite pleased with herself. “Should’ve thought of that beforehand.” The last was said with an obvious note of apology in her voice as she glanced between Theron and Vector. Both men looked like they’d been struck upside the head with a durasteel pole.

“It … It is …,” Vector began, just as Theron mumbled, “It’s fine, we know it wasn’t really her.”

Judging by the sound of his voice, however, Caedan suspected that Theron wasn’t entirely convinced. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like to have someone you love throw all your own insecurities and fears back in your face like that – although it occurred to him that members of his own former crew had experienced something similar from him. What must it have been like for Kira or Doc or Rusk, trapped on the Emperor’s fortress and watching their friend and leader being made into one of the Emperor’s puppets? Granted, Caedan hadn’t been intimate with any of them, but he had certainly known them all well enough to find every single pressure point and insecurity they possessed and stomp down on it - which was exactly what Miranza, or the wraith inside of her, was doing now.

Frustrated by her sudden inability to get a rise out of anyone, Miranza moved in close to the shield again and began hammering her fists against the golden dome. It was no longer possible to hear her, but Caedan had no trouble reading her lips as she shouted “Let me out of here!” Then she stepped back, a look of calm contemplation on her face as she took up position in the centre of the dome again. Her silver eyes flicked around the room, taking in her captivated audience – and one of her daggers materialized in her hand.

“Should she be able to do that?” Felix asked, echoing Caedan’s thoughts pretty much word for word.

“We don’t know _how_ she does it,” Senya replied, sounding worried. “Much less how to stop her.”

“She was definitely unarmed when she went in there,” said Theron. Vector concurred – not that Caedan had had any doubts on the matter. The two men were in love with the Imperial spy, but that love hadn’t blinded them to the fact that she was an exceptionally dangerous woman who could kill any number of them in less time than it would take for them to stop her. He knew that their search had been thorough: the daggers had not been on her person when Seffi and Razjarran created their shields over her. For all Caedan knew those daggers could have been sitting in the weapons lockup back on board the _Vigilant_ \- or on Tatooine somewhere. She just produced them from the void, somehow.

Smiling, her silver eyes darting from Theron to Vector, Miranza lifted her dagger and made a great show of holding it up to her opposite arm. It was a production, a performance, a dance: _See me? See what I can do? I don’t need words to hurt you._ Then, to Caedan’s horror, she drew the dagger down her arm, the sharp blade slicing easily through pale flesh and serpentine markings alike. Dark red blood welled and began to drip onto the floor, shimmering strangely in the golden light. Miranza lifted the dagger again and held it to her cheek. Her eyes glittered. She was laughing at them, blood dripping down her arm, off the dagger.

Seffi made a small sound of disgust. “Somebody stop her!”

The dagger flashed, a red line cutting from cheekbone to chin. Vector gasped. There was another quick slash, this time to the inside of Miranza’s arm; blood splashed against the inside of the shield and trickled down to the ground. Another cut, this time along her collarbone. The slashes were vivid against her ghost-white skin. A small red puddle was forming at her feet. The dagger came to rest against the side of Miranza’s neck.

Seffi moved, shuffling closer to the shield.

“Stand down!” Senya snapped at her, just as Lana hissed, “She isn’t going to kill herself. The wraith is very invested in its own survival.”

But it was too late: Seffi had moved too close to the shield, and as soon as she got within arm’s length of Miranza the dagger dropped, clattering off the stone floor as Miranza’s hand snapped through the golden dome right in front of the Nautolan woman’s face. The dome shattered, obliterated, Seffi’s concentration completely scattered. There was a crackle of lightning and a barely-suppressed hiss of pain, and then Seffi was dangling off the ground, Miranza’s hand wrapped tight around her neck.

“I said,” Miranza purred, giving Seffi a savage yank, _“let me out.”_

There was an audible crunch as Miranza snapped Seffi’s neck. The Nautolan’s body hit the ground with a dull, meaty thud, eyes staring blankly at something none of the rest of them could see.

Caedan – already moving forward the moment Seffi approached the shield – froze in his tracks as Miranza disappeared and then reappeared directly behind Theron.

Someone cried out – it might have been Caedan himself – as Miranza’s hand twisted through Theron’s hair, yanking his head back to expose his throat. Miranza’s other dagger materialized in her free hand, the blade pressed against Theron’s skin.

“You’re all going to want to step back now,” Miranza said softly, digging the blade in, “or he dies next.”

“You’re not gonna kill me,” Theron said, just as Vector murmured, in a voice filled with quiet agony, “Beloved, please do not do this.”

Miranza’s gaze flicked to Vector and her lips twitched in a faint semblance of a smile. “Miranza isn’t here right now, lover.” Her hand moved, ever so slightly, and a thin bead of blood oozed down Theron’s throat, staining the collar of his shirt.

“Good to know,” Theron said – and then he _moved,_ right hand striking out behind him, lightning-fast. Miranza doubled over, second dagger falling from her grip, both hands going to the vibroknife that had seemingly come out of nowhere to sink itself into her gut. Theron shifted around, grabbing his knife and giving it a savage twist as he rode his lover to the ground. Miranza hit the cavern floor with a choked-off grunt, trying to buck Theron loose. He was heavier than her; she might be strong, but basic physics were on his side.

“Give me my wife back,” he snarled, straddling her legs as he shoved the blade in deeper.

“Or what, Theron?” Miranza – or the thing that had taken her over – gasped up at him. She was still smirking, even as she tried to push him off. Caedan knew she was stronger than Theron, or at least the entity possessing her was stronger, but the former SIS operative would not be shaken off. She bucked again, a gruesome parody of the act of love, but this only served to dig the knife in. Her shirt was going red and slick with blood; her hands, scrabbling for purchase against Theron’s wrists, slipped against his skin.

“Or you’ll die,” Theron snapped. “Slowly and painfully.”

“You wouldn’t” – Miranza gasped again as Theron gave the blade another vicious twist – “dare.”

“Says the monster with my knife in its gut,” Theron retorted. He moved, adjusting his position so that his knees were pinning her thighs to the ground. “This” – another twist of the blade; the wraith let out a whimper and Vector winced, going pale – “is a gut wound. Now, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure I nicked some pretty important stuff in there. Even so, it can take you a long, long time to die from this kind of injury and it is a pretty fucking painful way to go. Remember that very large Sith with a very large axe?” Miranza’s eyes widened, and Theron laughed, an ugly sound that sent a thrill of unease rippling through Caedan. “Yeah, like that. Only this time, _Darth Occlus isn’t here to save you.”_

Miranza’s feet kicked uselessly at the ground. One of her hands slapped Theron’s thigh, the other trying to dislodge the knife. There was too much blood, her fingers - growing clumsy and weak - couldn’t find purchase.

“She’ll …” She struggled for breath. There was no mistaking the desperation on her face. “She’ll die, too.”

Theron’s face was wet with tears but his expression was firm. “You’re already killing her.”

“Stop this.” Caedan was surprised by the sound of his own voice: he hadn’t intended to say anything, but he couldn’t just stand there and let Theron murder the woman he loved. _Why isn’t Vector doing anything?_ The Joiner was just standing there, a look of sheer anguish upon his alien features. “He’s killing her!”

Miranza snarled again, features twisting into an inhuman mask. Caedan felt a sudden shift in the Force, a snapping sensation that caused the entire room to tilt alarmingly, and then for a brief instant it looked like Miranza was getting up. Reality reasserted itself and he saw that it wasn’t Miranza, but the thing inside of her, pushing out from her body to try and flee the pain Theron was causing. For a moment the two images were superimposed on each other: Miranza Gerrick, pale and bloody and drawn, and the wraith, utterly monstrous in appearance, fangs bared and claws outstretched. Oriana grunted and that snap became a tug, and Caedan felt it the moment her shielding technique slammed into place over the wraith. The wraith _screamed,_ mingled pain and anger and frustration; it was a noise Caedan could feel more than hear.

Waves of Force energy swept out from Oriana and Lana, almost knocking Caedan to the ground. Everything fizzled out for one brief moment, his vision going white, and when he came back to himself Lana was leaning over Oriana, trying to rouse the Jedi – and Theron and Vector were both kneeling over Miranza, frantically putting pressure on her stomach wound. The screaming had stopped. Caedan could find no trace of the wraith - only the devastation it had left behind.

“Help her!” Theron croaked, sweeping a desperate gaze around until his eyes alit on Senya. The former Knight of Zakuul was staggering forward, one hand pressed to her temple as she tried to shake off the effect of Oriana and Lana’s combined Force blast. She dropped to her knees beside Miranza and pushed Theron and Vector’s hands away, a golden light already beginning to flicker forth from her fingertips.

When Caedan moved in closer – Felix having gone to his wife’s side – Theron and Vector were clinging to each other, Theron’s face pressed in hard against the Joiner’s shoulder. Caedan could just barely make out what Theron was mumbling into Vector’s shirt: _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”_

The Enclave smelled of blood and ozone. Razjarran, his electrical shield long since disrupted, knelt by Seffi’s sad, twisted body, gently brushing her eyes closed. Felix was helping Oriana to her feet, letting her lean against him so he could lead her over to Miranza. Lana sat huddled in on herself, one shaking hand pressed to her mouth as she stared around with wide eyes. Caedan felt like he was at the epicentre of an earthquake as he stood watch over the scene. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do here. He didn’t know how he could help. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to play out. This wasn’t what they had planned for.

Senya looked up, letting Oriana take over healing Miranza. She started to reach out to take Theron’s hand but, noticing her own hands were covered in blood – admittedly, so were Theron’s – she drew back and instead offered him an exhausted but reassuring smile.

“She’ll be all right,” she said, patting his shoulder.

Miranza gasped, her eyes flashing open. They were blue. Not silver, not silver-blue, but deep dark blue like the oceans on Manaan. _Just like Vector said._ One pale hand flailed weakly in Theron’s direction; after a moment’s hesitation he caught it and held it in both of his own, Vector’s hands coming out to clasp tightly around them both.

“Theron,” Miranza whispered. Theron leaned in closer to hear her, but even from where Caedan stood Miranza’s next words were clear: “Thank you.”

One of the men – it was hard to say whether it was Theron or Vector – let out a shuddering sob, and Caedan turned away, intending to give the trio privacy. He felt on the edge of falling apart, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to watch Theron and Vector with Miranza without it resulting in him finally collapsing. Nobody needed that. He was the Commander of the Alliance: he needed to be strong. Besides, it wasn’t his lover who had nearly died. _Just someone who might’ve been my lover, if I’d had the nerve to say something on Ziost._ His gaze skittered over Seffi and Razjarran, eyes lifting upward until he was staring blindly at the Alliance flag that decorated the rear wall of the cave. The Republic eagle and the Imperial cog, both in red set against a black background, stood out in stark contrast against the grey cavern walls. In the back of his mind his own personal demon roused himself again, using Caedan’s eyes to survey the scene.

_The monster feared death, and pain,_ Valkorion informed him, ancient eyes peering down at Miranza’s bloodied body. _Insightful of your young spy friend to ascertain that fact._

_Theron’s smart,_ Caedan replied, hating the way the former Sith emperor switched between complimenting and insulting Theron. He would have rather Valkorion remained silent entirely, but that seemed an unlikely development. If he couldn’t have silence, then the least the bastard could do would be to respect Theron - and the other members of the Alliance.

_Do not think to rid yourself of me with the same trick,_ Valkorion murmured acerbically. _I have died dozens of times before_ – as you well know. _Unlike that little spy’s demon, I do not fear pain or death, and such brute force measures will not push me out. Attempt it, and I shall take you with me._

“I accept your terms,” Caedan said out loud, unable to pull his eyes away from the tearful reunion taking place a few feet from him. And not more than a few feet from that: a young Nautolan woman, life ended simply because she’d had the misfortune to be compassionate.

In the back of his mind Valkorion let out a little ripple of laughter. When he “spoke” again his voice held a mixture of amusement and pride. _I do believe you mean that, Jedi._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "River" is by Bishop Briggs. It's _so_ good.
> 
> Not gonna lie, I was super-stoked to publish this chapter. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
> 
> Coming up: some much-needed fluff (and, let's face it, probably some smut).


	48. Shut Up and Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to a much-deserved vacation.

_**Wild Space, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

The _Star of Ubrixia_ was a Defender-class light corvette, the same make and model as Caedan Savarr’s _Vigilant,_ albeit one with a bit more wear and tear on her. The Commander’s ship had been sitting idle in a Toydarian’s junkyard for the past five years, whereas Master Oriana Zarasa’s ship had seen some use in the time Caedan had spent in carbonite. As a result the corvette had some … quirks, and while Theron was grateful to the Jedi for loaning him the spaceship there were some technical and mechanical issues that had to be addressed during the flight from Odessen to the unnamed planet that was to be their destination.

_Vacation,_ Theron thought to himself as he lay sprawled under the _Star_ ’s climate controls console. _Vay-cay-shun. I_ love _the sound of the word._

It was his first vacation in … well, in ever, truth be told. (Extended periods on the disabled list, suspensions from work because he’d pissed off Director Trant one too many times, and forced desk-jockey rotations did _not_ count, at least not according to literally anyone Theron had asked. And he _had_ asked.) All he’d had to do to earn this little period of respite was to stab his girlfriend in the gut.

Theron shoved the thought away with practiced ease. They’d discussed the matter already, although by tacit agreement the three of them were saving the bulk of their necessary serious conversations for when they were settled in at the waystation. This, though, had been too important to wait: Theron was not to feel guilty for stabbing Miranza, and Miranza was not to feel guilty for the terrible things she had said to him and Vector while possessed. It was all well and good to offer up blanket apologies and forgiveness for these transgressions – Theron had had no other choice, Miranza had not been in control of herself – but the fact of the matter was that these things had happened, and forgiveness and acceptance were not so simple as one ten-minute heart-to-heart would try to make it.

If he closed his eyes he could still feel her blood on his hands, could still remember what it had felt like to twist the knife in her gut.

Yeah, there was no way he wasn’t going to feel guilty about that.

The spanner slipped in Theron’s grasp, bumping up against the coolant port, and he cursed under his breath as his knuckles grazed the grilled surface of the hatch. This was the second time the climate controls had needed to be repaired, and the seventh time something on Oriana’s ship had required fixing. None of the repairs were overly complicated – even Miranza, still recovering from her injuries, had pulled double-duty as ship’s mechanic – but they were time-consuming and they were annoying as hell. As grateful as Theron was to the Bar’senthor for lending them her spaceship, he almost would have preferred the risks inherent in taking their own. At least the _Mercurial_ was in mint condition.

It had made sense at the time: between the multiple bounties still on Miranza’s head, the inevitable return of Darth Occlus, and the fact that all three of them were wanted in both Imperial _and_ Republic space, borrowing a ship instead of taking the _Mercurial_ had seemed a necessary precaution. Miranza’s Phantom-class was known, and for all that her ship had the ability to mask both its signal and its signature it was an incredibly recognizable vessel, especially if one knew to look for it. And their enemies _would_ know to look for it. Nobody, however, would expect to find two Imperial spies and one rogue Republic agent on a spaceship registered to a retired Jedi Council member. The three of them had enemies; Oriana Zarasa, so far as Theron knew, did not.

Getting Theron, Miranza and Vector off of Odessen seemed to be some kind of Force-sensitive conspiracy. Lana had made the initial suggestion – _“The three of you have been through so much lately, surely you could use a break”_ – and Oriana had followed it up by offering the use of her spaceship. Senya had put on her best Mom Voice to wheedle Theron into agreeing (it was unfair; he should be totally immune to even the _concept_ of a ‘Mom Voice’). But it had been Caedan and – of all people – Barrazhat who finally sold the idea.

With Caedan it had been remarkably uncomplicated: the Outlander remained undecided on how he wanted to deal with Miranza, and simply asked the three of them to leave Odessen while he considered the matter in peace. Theron didn’t think the former Hero of Tython intended to follow through on his threats of exiling Miranza, but there _was_ still the matter of a dead Nautolan Jedi and Miranza’s own erratic behaviour leading up to that point, and so Theron couldn’t really blame Caedan for wanting time and distance to think.

Barrazhat hadn’t done anything more than offer up a place for the three of them to stay. Mandalorian scouts had located a small planet a short distance away from Odessen. The planet didn’t have much in the way of resources – at least, nothing that couldn’t be easily acquired somewhere else – but the hunting was decent, if non-challenging. Good for Mando children, according to Barrazhat, and so a waystation had been established planet-side. It was, ostensibly, reserved solely for Mandalorian use, but between Rekka and Barrazhat Vyziari and a lingering acquaintance with Shae Vizla it was easy enough to “book out” the waystation for a couple of weeks. It was a frivolous use of carefully-cultivated Mandalorian contacts, and frankly, for once in his life Theron didn’t give a damn.

_Vay-caaaaaay-shun,_ he thought, before saying the word out loud and trying out the taste of it on his tongue. It was, he decided, a pretty nifty word.

Theron capped off the errant port and scooted out from under the console, wiping his filthy hands off on his trousers. The moment he reactivated the console there came the reassuring sound of air circulating through the vents, and he could almost imagine the subtle temperature shifts. The _Star_ had been just a couple of degrees too cold. The _last_ repair had been to increase the efficiency of the ship’s lighting. Before that, it was to adjust the feedback on the comms. If Theron didn’t know any better he would’ve sworn the ship was deliberately malfunctioning just to give the three of them something to do. Perhaps Oriana hadn’t loaned it to them solely out of the kindness of her heart but instead to get some free repairs out of the deal.

Smiling and shaking his head, Theron put the spanner away in the toolkit and carried it back up to the bridge, where it could be close at hand for the next inevitable breakdown.

Vector technically had the helm, although the ship was on autopilot and nothing needed to be done until they were within planetary orbit. The Joiner was sprawled in the low captain’s chair, his long legs propped up on the seat across from him, Miranza – at least Theron assumed it was Miranza under that pile of blankets – curled up in his lap. He turned to give Theron a sleepy smile as Theron knelt to tuck the toolkit back in its compartment, his chin resting on top of Miranza’s pale curls.

“She asleep?” Theron silently mouthed, only for Vector to draw back and shake his head slightly. Theron lifted the Joiner’s legs to settle into the opposite seat, then resettled Vector’s feet in his lap. Vector’s feet were bare, his tolerance for cooler temperatures far greater than Theron’s or Miranza’s. Post-Darth Occlus Miranza had been a furnace, but since the wraith had been expelled she’d gotten cold a lot easier – hence the fluffy blanket she had cocooned herself in.

“Any luck with the climate controls?” Miranza asked around a large, jaw-cracking yawn. All Theron could see of her was her face – still too pale, her creamy skin still tinged with blue rather than rosier hues, and now with a faint-yet-healing cut along one cheek – and her mop of platinum-coloured curls. Her eyes had darkened back to their normal blue, but if her hair was going to return to its dark blonde roots he hadn’t seen any indication of it yet. He knew that underneath those warm blankets she was too thin and too frail, her body struggling to recover both from the loss of the wraith as well as from the injuries she had sustained in the minutes leading up to its expulsion. Hopefully this vacation would be a step in the right direction towards recovery.

For all three of them.

“Yup, everything’s fixed,” Theron assured her. He wrapped his hands around Vector’s left foot and waited a few seconds for the ticklish response to calm down before slowly digging his thumbs into the arch. Vector made a small contented sound and eased back in the captain’s chair, his eyelids drooping closed.

“Until the next thing breaks,” the Joiner murmured. He didn’t sound bothered by the idea. The endless cycle of repairs had become something of a running joke: a minor inconvenience that gave them all something to do. “One would have expected a former Council-member’s spacecraft to be in much better shape than this.”

“One would,” Theron agreed. He continued massaging Vector’s foot, grinning down at the long, waggling toes. Vector’s feet – not unlike his hands and, indeed, his overall proportions – were surprisingly elegant. Sometimes Theron felt like a lummox beside him, lump of coal contrasted with the fine-cut diamond that was the Joiner. Most of the time, however, Theron was just content to stand back and admire the view. “At this point I’m almost positive Ori and Felix are playing a prank on us.”

“Mmm.” Miranza nodded sleepily. “Are Jedi Council-members even allowed to have a sense of humour?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” Theron flashed on a memory of his mother, the former Grandmaster of said Council. In the roughly ten or so years that he had known his mother, he could count the number of times he had witnessed Satele Shan smiling on one hand – and laughing, even less. Then again, their social interactions had never been over light-hearted matters, and smiles and laughter would have been inappropriate under the circumstances. He found it difficult to picture his mother in good humour, however, and extended that natural dourness toward the rest of the Council. Ori and Caedan were aberrations, Theron was sure of it.

“Perhaps that is why Master Zarasa is a _retired_ Council-member,” Vector suggested mildly. “Expunged from the ranks due to an excess of good cheer.” He shifted slightly, withdrawing one foot from Theron’s grasp to provide easier access to the other. His skin, under Theron’s hands, was cool and dry to the touch, but some of Theron’s own warmth was beginning to transfer over from the massage.

Theron took the hint, taking Vector’s offered foot in his hands and beginning the process of easing out the stiffness. Like Miranza, Vector was still healing – albeit from the injuries he had sustained on Nar Shaddaa, rather than anything new; unlike Miranza, he seemed less worn out by the process. Perhaps it was because his recovery was further along than hers, or perhaps it was due to his Joiner nature, but Theron suspected it had more to do with what had happened to the two of them than actual recovery time. As badly hurt as Vector had been, he hadn’t had something forcibly removed from him – something that had been living inside of him for well over a year. Theron was by no means an expert, but he had to imagine that being possessed by some kind of Force-entity had to take its toll on the body.

His head lowered so that he could ostensibly focus on Vector’s feet, Theron studied Miranza through his eyelashes, searching for some indication that everything was back to the way things had been. He knew that wasn’t possible – not just because of what had been done to Miranza, but because of what had happened to all three of them in the interim. Miranza had been changed, altered and manipulated; Theron had spent a significant amount of time recovering from trauma, and then falling off the wagon and coming up against a seemingly endless series of personal and interpersonal roadblocks; and Vector had been left to deal with the resulting fallout all on his own. The three of them had a lot to work through, likely far more than could be neatly addressed over the course of one short off-world vacation, but the important thing was that they had been given the chance to address their issues. Things could have gone in a much darker – and much more fatal – direction, and Theron was grateful that they had this opportunity. He was determined to make the most of things.

The three of them sat in companionable silence, Theron continuing his work on Vector’s feet, Vector sitting back and all but purring at the contact while Miranza snuggled in against the Joiner’s chest like a pale blonde manka kitten. Theron tried, for once in his life, not to overanalyze the situation – not to tear it all apart and overthink things. He was happy right now. They were together, they were working things out, there was hope for their future. Despite Master Zho’s teachings Theron had never been especially good at living in the moment, but he desperately wanted to try, with this moment.

As with all good things, this too must end: Theron was just starting to drift off, his hands still curled around Vector’s foot, when there was a loud bang from deep within the ship. He immediately bolted upright, Vector’s feet hitting the floorplates with a dull thud, and the three of them exchanged glances. The bang sounded again, low and metallic.

“Engine room?” Vector guessed, head cocked to one side as he listened intently.

Another bang. Theron nodded. “Engine room.” He sighed.

Vector and Miranza both raised their hands in a fist, counting off. Theron had already taken a turn at repairs, so this time it would be one of them, and they determined who would go next by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. For a woman who’d been in spy training since early childhood Miranza had an amusing tendency to telegraph her throws – even now, Theron could see that she was going to throw paper – which allowed him and Vector to determine the outcome with her every time. He suspected it was her way of indicating that she didn’t really care about the result: if he or Vector truly did not want to do the repair job, they could easily beat her throw, and if they didn’t mind taking over they could ensure she won. Most times Vector and Theron let Miranza win, since of the three of them she was in the worst physical shape; they let her take the easier repair jobs so that she wouldn’t feel like she wasn’t contributing.

As expected Miranza threw paper. Also as expected, Vector threw rock. Miranza smiled faintly and wrapped her hand around Vector’s before easing up off his lap – and resettling herself in Theron’s. Vector gave the pair of them a fond smile before retrieving the toolkit – honestly at this point they could probably just leave it out in the open in the centre of the ship where it would be easily accessible from anywhere else on the _Star_ – and heading off towards the engine room, humming cheerfully under his breath.

“What do you think it is this time?” Theron mused out loud, toeing his seat around until it faced the viewscreen and the endless field of stars ahead of them. “Blown coupler? Another coolant leak?”

“Ancient Jawa curse?” Miranza suggested in return. She gave him a mischievous smile and wrapped her blankets around them both, tucking her head in under his chin. She was a soft warm weight atop him, and while he was keenly aware of the changes that had been wrought against her, his body still knew her body and took comfort in her closeness.

There would be time for talking at the Mandalorian waystation. For now Theron just wanted to savour this.

Miranza seemed to be in agreement, snuggling against him and leaning up, her breath warm against his neck. He shifted, a little uncomfortable when he realized her lips were pressed to one of the bruises Ryshan had left behind; this time around Theron had given as good as he had gotten, but he and Ryshan had both walked away with bruises.

_Let it be the last time,_ he thought, closing his eyes and sinking in to the sensation of warm, wet lips trailing kisses over his neck. The things Miranza had said to him while under the wraith’s control had been all the more devastating because of their inherent truth. He _had_ arranged for Ryshan’s banishment in part because he knew he didn’t have the strength or the common sense to keep away from the other man. Kicking the pilot off of Odessen ensured that at least he wouldn’t run into him while at home, and if it was a cowardly solution to the problem … well, so be it. He could tell himself he wanted nothing more to do with Ryshan, but the fact of the matter was that he had always been drawn to the other man, and it didn’t seem to matter what awful shit the pilot did, Theron was always on board for more. Banning Ryshan removed that temptation, taking the choice away from Theron and giving him time to remind himself just how horrible Ryshan was in the first place.

“Stop it,” Miranza murmured against his neck.

“What?” Theron replied, a little defensive. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re thinking too hard.” She nipped his earlobe, worrying it with her teeth before letting go to plant a soft trail of kisses along his collarbone. “Again.”

“You a mind-reader now?” Theron closed his eyes, doing nothing to suppress the low rumble of pleasure that rose up in his chest when Miranza began to focus on that spot behind his ear that drove him mad. His mind was already starting to go through the logistics of sex on the bridge – could they manage it in the captain’s chair? Which position would be least likely to aggravate Miranza’s still-healing injuries? Was it considered bad etiquette to fuck your girlfriend on your friend’s spaceship? And how long should they wait for Vector to get back? - and his body was fully on board with this plan. Even the lingering ghosts of Ryshan and Darth Jadzira rearing their ugly heads wasn’t enough to deter Theron’s awakening libido.

Miranza scoffed, breath hot against his neck. “I can read you like a book, Shan.”

“Oh, really?” Theron let his voice drop to a low, raspy rumble, knowing how the sound drove her wild. “And what does that book say?”

Miranza’s answering soft, sexy chuckle went straight to Theron’s groin, and she leaned up a little to whisper in his ear. “It says –”

A sudden, incredibly loud boom echoed throughout the _Star of Ubrixia_ as the ship suddenly lurched backwards with such force that Miranza would have fallen out of Theron’s lap if he hadn’t had the reflexes to catch her. As it was he had to let her off the chair or risk both of them upending onto the cold, hard deck.

“That was not the engine room,” Miranza said, blankets falling off her shoulders to pool around her feet.

“No, it was not,” Theron agreed, just as a blinding blue light filled the viewscreen.

Blinking off the brightness Theron leaned forward, peering out the viewscreen and up. There, just above them, was a medium-sized spaceship – its tractor beam locked on theirs. He wasn’t familiar with the model, but from the size and shape of it he guessed the ship was some kind of junker hauler, a light-weight freighter with the raw engine power to tow much larger - typically damaged - spaceships.

The _Star_ ’s proximity alarms should have gone off long before the other ship had made it anywhere within tractor range. No alarms were sounding, not even now that they were snagged. The hauler had either jammed their sensors, or its pilot had used some kind of cloaking device to mask its signal until the ship was right on top of theirs. Theron’s mind was already racing through the possibilities, analyzing and discarding dozens of likely scenarios ranging from bounty hunters to pirates to slavers to - for one brief, heart-stopping moment of panic - Amrielle finally coming after them.

There was another loud boom somewhere in the direction of the airlock. Someone was trying to board their ship.

_Shit,_ Theron thought as he and Miranza raced towards the source of the noise. Their weapons were scattered throughout the ship – namely in the cargo hold and the captain’s quarters – but neither of them was currently armed. That had been the whole point of taking the _Star of Ubrixia_ and heading to the Mandalorians’ waystation: no one should be coming after them aboard Oriana’s ship and the journey between Odessen and their tiny planet was well-patrolled by the Alliance. It was supposed to be safe.

So much for safe.

The airlock blew open with a hiss of expelled air. An arm snaked through the opening, something small and cylindrical clutched in its hand.

Theron had enough time to throw himself over Miranza before the grenade landed a few feet away from them, clinking off the metal floorplates. He braced himself for the explosion, head tucked in against Miranza’s back.

Nothing happened.

Miranza made a small, miserable sound underneath him, and then he caught the first sickly-sweet whiff of coma gas. He turned his head, catching sight of three figures moving towards them, bodies obscured by the cloud of gas that was rapidly filling the narrow passage. Miranza went limp with such alacrity her head bounced off the ground. Theron’s vision narrowed to tiny pinpricks, darkness pulling in around him.

The last thing Theron saw was a masked face peering down at him. Hands grabbed Theron by the shoulders, and then he knew no more.

O o O o O

Theron came to back on the bridge, kneeling side by side with Miranza in front of the captain’s seat. His arms were restrained in front of him, heavy cuffs locked around his wrists, but his legs were left free.

 _Amateurs,_ he thought contemptuously, swallowing a few times to try and rid himself of the taste of coma gas. His mouth was gummy, his tongue thick. Beside him Miranza seemed to be struggling to come around; he wasn’t surprised, given that she was both smaller and in worse condition than him. The gas must’ve hit her like a freightloader. She had a small scrape along one cheekbone – opposite to the scar she’d given herself while possessed by the wraith – but otherwise seemed uninjured. She opened her eyes with a start and for a moment Theron saw panic written clearly across her face, but as he watched she visibly calmed herself. Her eyes found his.

_Well,_ her expression seemed to say, _This looks bad._

He waggled his fingers at her, making the sign for Vector while silently thanking Rekka Vyziari for teaching them some sign language – and for making sure all three of them had their own sign-names. His eyebrows rose, making the name a question. Miranza frowned and shrugged, a minute lifting of her shoulders. Vector wasn’t there on the bridge with them. Did that mean he was being held prisoner elsewhere on the ship, or had he managed to avoid being captured? Theron refused to believe his absence indicated the Joiner had been killed.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.” The man’s voice came from behind them, and Theron had to crane his neck to see a large human male standing beside the helm. He wore heavy armour, cheap-looking but in good repair, and there was a large scar spiderwebbing its way across his craggy face. The man gestured towards the helm. “I see you managed to lock down the controls. I’m going to need you to unlock them for us.”

_Us?_ Theron wondered, before catching sight of two more men joining them on the bridge. One was a tall, whip-thin Devaronian with a not-insignificant number of facial piercings and the third man was another human, slightly shorter than the first but just as broad in the shoulders and even more heavily muscled. Like their apparent ringleader these two were clad in cheap, mismatched but well-cared-for armour, and both were heavily armed with blaster pistols, vibroknives and what Theron suspected might be stun-batons.

“Can’t,” Miranza said, before Theron could think up a reply. They hadn’t had time to lock the ship’s controls; he didn’t know how it could have happened, unless the ship was automatically programmed to shut off helm control when locked in a tractor beam. Or unless Vector had managed to shut things down from the engine room – or wherever he was.

“What do you mean, you _can’t?”_ the first man growled, coming out from behind them to stand in the middle of the bridge, facing them. Up close he towered over them and he used that height to its best advantage, making himself as intimidating as possible. Granted, Miranza was accustomed to being the shortest person in the room and wasn’t overly intimidated by height, and Theron was confident enough in his own skills and experience that someone lording greater height over him wasn’t that big of a deal - but the scarred man didn’t know that. He was clearly used to using his superior size and strength to get what he wanted.

Theron had a sneaking suspicion scar-face was about to be disappointed.

Miranza shrugged, expression falling somewhere between apologetic and openly mocking. “I mean it’s not our ship. We can’t unlock the controls.” Theron had to mask his surprise at the slow Corellian drawl that came out of Miranza’s mouth; she’d always had an ear for languages and accents, far better than his (and he was no slouch, if he did say so himself). Her native posh Imperial accent might have drawn consternation, but the scarred man didn’t bat an eye at a Corellian woman.

“Not your …?” The man frowned, scar stretching in strange new directions. “You’re on a Republic military spacecraft and you’re telling me it’s not yours? Did you steal it?”

Republic … Right. _Shit._ The light corvette was similar in model to the Republic Military’s Thranta-class ships; both were manufactured on Corellia. To the untrained eye – or at least, someone who didn’t have as intrinsic an understanding of the sharp divide between Jedi and military resources – it would be easy to assume the _Star_ was military-issue, in much the same way that the average person tended to assume that the Jedi themselves were a part of the Republic military.

“Nope.” Miranza’s tone was deliberately careless, as was her expression. She smirked and met the man’s gaze, jerking her chin in Theron’s direction. “His daddy’s a big name in the Republic Military. We … borrowed … his ship.” Her eyes were very wide and very blue. “We’re just a couple of kids out for a joyride.”

Theron took great pains not to goggle at her. There was something to be said about using careful applications of the truth in an interrogation, and that was almost certainly what Miranza was doing now. The ship _was_ borrowed. Theron’s father – he shuddered internally at the idea of calling Jace Malcom “daddy” in any context, and prayed to every god he didn’t believe in that word never got back to the man – _was_ a big name in the Republic Military. Technically speaking they _were_ even out for a joyride, although Theron couldn’t think of a time in his life when such a carefree act of teenage rebellion would have appealed to him. While his peers might have been out stealing their father’s ships and wreaking havoc, Theron had been scrounging for food and shelter on nowhere planets after being dismissed from Tython. He hadn’t had time for anything so frivolous as joyrides and making mischief.

But that was how you sowed uncertainty in an interrogation: tell your interrogator truths they won’t believe. And sure enough, the scarred man did not believe a single word Miranza told him.

A large hand in a heavy gauntlet lashed out, so quickly Theron barely had time to register the threat before Miranza’s head was rocking to one side, a bruise already darkening along her cheekbone.

“Ouch,” she said, still managing a smirk.

The man sighed. “Let’s try this again. Whose ship is this?”

Miranza’s smirk broadened as she dropped another unbelievable truth: “We borrowed it from a Jedi.”

A second slap, delivered with almost casual efficiency, opened up a cut on Miranza’s lip. Theron shifted, intent upon taking the next blow for her, but then caught sight of Miranza’s hands signing rapidly at him. _Don’t._ He glared at her but forced himself to remain still.

“Is it just the two of you?” the ringleader asked, as Miranza licked blood away from her mouth.

Miranza’s face was filled with salacious glee, and she answered him in a low, sultry whisper, “It’s not a private joyride if there’s an audience. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. No judgments here.”

Scowling, the scarred man moved forward and kneed Miranza in the face, hard enough that she was left reeling. When he stepped back again she was dazed, already falling, and barely managed to catch herself on her cuffed hands, seconds before she would have smacked her face on the bridge’s floorplates. She huddled on the ground, nose bloodied, trying to catch her breath. Theron’s desire to intervene was increasing exponentially; only the knowledge that Miranza was clearly goading the ringleader on purpose – to what end, Theron had yet to discover – held him back.

_“You,”_ the man said, grabbing Miranza by the shoulders and hauling her to her feet, “are going to tell me how to unlock this ship. _Now.”_

“Yeah, we’re really not,” Miranza replied, already bracing for the next blow. She wasn’t left disappointed: the man released one shoulder and punched her, hard, in the gut. Theron only barely repressed a wince as Miranza’s breath was released in a pained gasp and she sank back down to her knees. Her captor let her fall, his eyes lighting on Theron.

“Bring him over to the helm,” the scarred man said, motioning to the console. The second human hastened to comply, grabbing Theron by the arm and dragging him up to the helm. The man’s grip was solid, a hard band of durasteel around Theron’s bicep. Theron stumbled, tripping over the first step, but managed to right himself before his captor could assist him.

“Unlock the console,” the leader ordered Theron, grabbing Miranza by the hair and yanking her head up. She tried to spit blood at him but he dodged her aim. On the surface her defiance appeared to be waning, the fight going out of her; Theron knew better to believe what he saw written on her face. The bruises and blood made Miranza look almost pitiable, but the spark in her eyes - hidden to all but Theron by the fall of her pale hair - told another story entirely.

“I won’t,” Theron said, his eyes on Miranza. He was beginning to suspect that this attack had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the ship itself. These weren’t targeted assailants, he was almost certain: they were pirates. No doubt a military-grade corvette would fetch a handsome price on the black market or even in the junkyards. Theron was halfway tempted to tell the ringleader that Oriana’s ship was a hunk of junk and they’d all be better off cutting their losses now, but somehow he rather doubted the man would believe him.

The Devaronian stood with his back to the entrance of the brig. No doubt he was supposed to have been guarding the doorway – although their attackers had made no mention of Vector, so perhaps they thought it was just Theron and Miranza on board? – but instead he was facing inwards, openly grinning as his boss manhandled Miranza. The shorter human gave Theron a little shake, shoving him up against the console, and Miranza gave a choked-off cry when the ringleader struck her again. When Theron tossed a worried glance in her direction he saw that her eyes were blazing with anger; she didn’t look frightened or worried, she looked _furious._

“You will,” the ringleader said, as his henchman shoved Theron into the console again. There was a soft scraping sound, leatheris against metal, and then the scarred man was holding up a knife, letting the lights from the shipboard computers shine along the sharp-looking blade. He set the knife against Miranza’s cheek, just below the fresh scrape, and gave Theron a pointed look. “The next time you tell me ‘no’ I’m gonna start putting my mark on this pretty face, and I’m not stopping until you say ‘yes.’”

Theron knew perfectly well that Miranza could handle some rough treatment – stars, she’d endured far worse at the hands of Samar and Alric Ulgo – but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch some pirate asshole cut her up. And she was already hurt: Theron could see a bright spot of blood on her shirt, from where her stab wound must have opened up under the ringleader’s kicks and punches. She was hunched over, cuffs pressed against her abdomen, shoulders drawn in and slumping. The expression on her face was cowed, hurting – but when she caught Theron looking her way, there was fire in her eyes and she gave him a minute head-shake. Carefully, so that the gestures seemed like nothing more than the twitching of restless, trembling hands, Miranza signed again: _Don’t._

The urge to save her more pain was strong, but not nearly as strong as the knowledge that even if Theron did unlock the ship’s controls – and Miranza hadn’t been lying about that; neither of them had shut the console down, nor did they know how to unlock them again – there was little chance the pirates actually intended to let them go. Theron frantically wracked his memory for reports on the area but could come up with nothing to suggest that piracy had ever been an issue before now. Still, with all the refugees and wannabe Alliance supporters flooding to Odessen it was not unreasonable that sooner or later some enterprising soul would look at the unmanned routes and see a boat-load of credit signs. And there was an awful lot of wiggle room between ‘letting Theron and Miranza go’ and ‘murdering them and dumping their corpses out the airlock.’ Once the pirates had control of the _Star of Ubrixia_ they would kill the two of them, or they would forcibly remove the implants from Theron’s head (which would also likely kill him), or they would sell the pair of the into slavery on Zakuul.

Or hand them over to Arcann – or, if they figured out who Miranza and Theron actually were, hand them in for any of the numerous bounties on their heads.

“I won’t unlock the console,” Theron said firmly, casting a silent apology in Miranza’s direction.

“Hard way it is, then,” the ringleader replied agreeably, as though Theron’s response made no difference to him either way.

The ringleader turned to focus his attention on Miranza, flipping the knife around in his hand to adjust his grip. That brief second of distraction was all Theron needed: he lunged sideways, bringing his cuffed wrists up in a single solid blow to his own captor’s face in a strike that left the man staggering. As Theron followed the first hit up with a second, stronger blow Miranza surged upwards and slammed her own cuffs into the ringleader’s groin. The scarred man crumpled forward with a choked-off wheeze of pain, knife falling to the ground as he clutched both hands to his injured nethers.

Before the Devaronian could so much as cry out in warning a tanned hand snaked out of the darkness beyond the bridge and snagged him by the collar. There was a loud thud and a solid crunch as the man was slammed head-first into the bulkhead with such force the metal buckled.

Vector stepped over the body and closed with the scarred man, grabbing him by the back of his armour before he had fully recovered from Miranza’s groin shot. He punched the man in the face with all the strength in his Killik-enhanced body. The ringleader went limp, but Vector - clearly still having some aggression to work out - let fly with a few more punches, pummeling the man until his face was a ruin and Vector’s fists were bloodied. When Vector at last pulled away from his fallen opponent all three pirates were down and the bridge was secured. Theron’s own opponent had dropped after the second cuff-enforced strike to the face, and the Devaronian Vector had taken out wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. None of them would be.

Calm, cool and collected – face half-smeared in blood from a nasty cut high up along his hairline – Vector nudged the ringleader’s body out of the way before moving in to rid Miranza of her cuffs.

“They cuffed you in front?” the Joiner mused out loud, scornful. He wasn’t even out of breath. He didn’t pick the lock on the cuff; instead he grabbed the thin metal band and twisted, superior strength rending the cuff in two. “Amateurs.”

Vector came over and removed Theron’s cuffs, breaking them in half just as he had done with Miranza’s. Up close the gash on his forehead was dark with bruising and clotted blood, and the red smear all down the side of his face lent him a feral, dangerous mien. Vector caught Theron looking and offered up a rueful smile.

“We fell into the engine casement when the ship lurched,” Vector said by way of explanation. “It took us some time to collect ourselves, and then we put the ship into lockdown. We apologize for our tardiness. Had we known the two of you were in distress” – he frowned in Miranza’s direction, head tilted to one side as he gazed at the blood beginning to seep through her shirt – “we would have come to the bridge directly.”

“No, locking the ship’s controls was a good idea,” Miranza replied, waving him off. Now that she no longer had an audience the cowed demeanour was gone, replaced with a sort of tired satisfaction at a job well done. One hand settled over her middle, fingers splayed over the stain spreading across her shirt; with her other hand she probed delicately at the fresh marks on her face. “Can you unlock them again?”

“Yes.” Vector drew Miranza’s hand away gently and lifted the ends of her shirt, baring the wound at her gut. It wasn’t as bad as Theron had feared: the stab wound had reopened, but only slightly, just enough to bleed and make a mess. It was no doubt painful, but scarcely the worst injury Miranza had sustained. So far as Theron could tell, her new injuries were all superficial, and it occurred to him that if _he_ knew how to stage a fight so that he looked worse off than he really was, she almost certainly possessed the same skill. Vector nonetheless made a low sound of disapproval as he inspected the wound, then glanced towards the helm, expression distant. “But not from here. We will need to return to the engine room. You,” he added, speaking to Miranza, “need to be in the medbay. Theron, love, are you injured?”

“No. She pulled all their aggro.” Theron frowned at Miranza. “What the hell was that, Miri? They could’ve killed you.”

Miranza shrugged, grimacing as Vector probed the scrape along her cheekbone. She batted the Joiner’s hands away. “They were going to hurt one of us. I just made sure it was me.”

“Yeah, but … _why?_ You’re already injured. Did you really need to be knocked around some more?”

“Exactly.” At Theron’s confused glance Miranza gestured towards herself. “I’m already injured. In a sustained fight I’m next to useless right now. We didn’t know where Vector was, so we couldn’t expect an incoming rescue. If they’d gone after you they might have taken you out of play. I was _already_ out of play. So long as they focused on me, I figured you might be safe and still capable of fighting. Besides,” she added, in a soft, anxious tone, “I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

Theron filed that last comment away to be examined later, along with the warm feeling that bubbled up in his chest at the idea of it. Instead he looked down at the ringleader, the unconscious man’s scarred face bruised and bloodied. Vector had done the bulk of the damage, but Miranza had been the one to get the drop on him. Theron imagined that groin shot had to have been pretty satisfying for her. After a moment he gazed up again at Miranza. “You seemed pretty capable to me.”

She scoffed at that, leaning her hip against a nearby console. Her adrenaline was clearly flagging; with the immediate danger out of the way she looked exhausted, and for once made no effort to hide it. “Yes, well, I’m pretty much tapped out now.” Her face scrunched up in an expression of mild puzzlement. “That took more out of me than I was expecting.”

“You’ve been feeding off the strength and stamina of a Force-wraith for well over a year, beloved,” Vector replied, coming over to draw Miranza’s arm over his shoulder. From the way she sagged against him Theron could tell that the Joiner was supporting the bulk of her weight. “We imagine returning to your original status quo takes some readjusting. Come, let us get you to the medbay.”

One thing could be said of borrowing Jedi Master Zarasa’s ship: given her vocation as a healer, the medbay was exceedingly well-provisioned. The Mirialan took her doctoring seriously. It was a safe bet the kolto tank was full and the medkits would be loaded with all the necessary odds and ends of medical treatment. It was a decent change from the _Mercurial,_ which was well-stocked but within the limits of their perpetually credits-strapped state. Kolto was expensive; the three of them (and the additional members of Team Nexu) relied upon Miranza’s talents as a combat medic and whatever they could pull out of an emergency medkit.

Theron swept his gaze over the three fallen pirates. None of them was stirring yet. Judging by the rather sizable dent on the bulkhead by the bridge entrance, the Devaronian might not stir ever again. Theron didn’t feel overly troubled by the idea. The ringleader was still breathing, however, blood bubbling up around his nose with every exhalation. He was surprised; he’d thought Vector had killed him. Even in the midst of bludgeoning a man into unconsciousness the Joiner’s restraint was remarkable.

“What’re we doing with these guys?” Theron asked.

“Kill them?” Miranza suggested, in a tone that indicated she really didn’t care. Theron was rather abruptly reminded that his lover had been a remarkably ruthless woman long before Darth Occlus and her fake-Sith alchemical wraith had come along. Threats were to be disposed of, neatly and efficiently. Three pirates – three pirates who had attacked them – were nothing in the face of that brutal pragmatism. The wraith hadn’t made Miranza this way; _life_ had, life and years in the service of the Empire.

Vector and Theron exchanged glances.

“Or we could tie them up on their own ship and have the Alliance come pick them up?” Theron proposed by way of alternative, earning himself a tight nod from the Joiner.

Miranza sighed. “Or we could do that. Make sure to set their ship adrift, though: we don’t want them getting away before your pet Jedi can get to them.”

“He’s not my—” Theron began, before cutting himself off. “You know what? Never mind.” Clearly that little moniker hadn’t been a by-product of the wraith any more than Miranza’s stark pragmatism had been; he and Miranza were going to need to have a chat regarding his relationship – or lack thereof, presently – with the Commander of the Alliance. He added that conversation to the long list of things they needed to discuss once they got to the Mandalorian waystation. At this rate they would need to be gone a month before they’d sorted through everything.

“Medbay. _Now,_ beloved, before you bleed all over Master Zarasa’s bridge.” Vector’s tone was light, but there was an underlying hint of urgency in his voice.

“You do me,” Miranza said, patting his bloodied cheek, “then I’ll do you.”

Vector’s face went blank, a faint rosy tint suffusing his features. After a moment he cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes. _Quite.”_

Miranza chuckled, low and suggestive, reminding Theron of just where things had been headed between them before the pirates showed up.

_Cockblocking pirates,_ he thought, scowling down at the man closest to him. Outwardly he sighed, bending to grab the unconscious man and begin hauling him towards the airlock, to be transferred over to the pirates’ spaceship. He made a mental note to grab six sets of cuffs – three sets for wrists, three sets for ankles – before leaving the _Star._ And unlike the pirates, he would remember to cuff their prisoners’ arms behind their backs instead of in the front, because Theron Shan was _not_ an amateur.

Hopefully Vector and Miranza wouldn’t need to take too long in the medbay, and Vector would be able to come along to help Theron unload their prisoners. The Joiner was still injured, but his strength far surpassed Theron’s and his assistance would make the process go that much more quickly. Then Theron could contact the Odessen base to have Caedan send someone over to retrieve the pirates – and their ship – and the three of them could continue on their merry way to the Mandalorians’ private hunting planet. They could put all of this behind them, just another minor speedbump in the general insanity that was their lives.

Theron brightened at the prospect of a week or two alone with Vector and Miranza. Speaking aloud to no one in particular, he announced, “Have I mentioned how much I love the word ‘vacation’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Shut Up and Drive" is by Rihanna.
> 
> Huge shout-out to Greyias, whose comment on Tumblr was the only source I could find for a transcription of Theron’s “vacation” quote (without logging in and poking Theron a bajillion times myself to get him to finally, _finally_ say it).
> 
> Okay, so I lied when I said there would be fluff and smut here. I mean, there's some fluff, and what starts out looking like it's going to be smut, and then ... cockblocking pirates. This chapter went through multiple iterations where the overall feel was far angstier than I wanted, so I scrapped the whole thing and wrote this instead. But there _will_ be more fluff - and more actual smut - coming up. I promise.


	49. Still My Heart This Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vacation begins in a snowy, out-of-the-way waystation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff and angst and a lot of introspection. As this chapter is from Theron's point of view and he does think about the things he's been through recently, trigger warnings do apply. None of it is graphic, however.

_**Wild Space, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Theron had always kind of assumed that the first vacation he took in … well, in _forever,_ actually … would be on some resort planet like Makeb. Somewhere with sandy beaches, clear blue oceans and a swim-up bar. Manaan would’ve been nice (no beaches, but the resorts were five-star); even Rishi, minus the Revanites and a torture-happy ancestor, would have fit the bill. He’d never had a real vacation and honestly, maybe he’d rather built the idea up in his mind, giving himself unrealistic expectations about the concept. He did have a very particular image of what a vacation should look like, and the cramped little waystation on an unnamed planet in the middle of Wild Space did not in any way resemble that fantasy.

The planet – so small and inconsequential that it didn’t even have a name yet, just a series of letters and numbers as its designation – was a relatively short jaunt away from Odessen, and had been claimed as a hunting ground by some Mandalorians. There was nothing exceptionally valuable or strategic about the location so the Alliance let the Mandalorians have it without a fuss in spite of its proximity to Odessen and the Alliance base. Conveniently Theron had an in with the Mandalorians, and so thanks to his connections to Rekka and Barrazhat Vyziari, he, Vector and Miranza were graciously given access to the tiny waystation cabin that had been established solely for Mando use.

Unlike Hoth or Tatooine this little planet had a variety of seasons. According to Barrazhat the springs and summers were quite pleasant, especially if one was at all inclined to go hunting. It was winter when Theron set the Defender-class corvette down in the clearing near the waystation, snow drifting down in fat, fluffy flakes. The trees – something vaguely coniferous with blue-green needles – were blanketed in white and in the distance Theron could make out snow-capped mountains. The setting reminded him of Alderaan in the early days of his relationship with Vector and Miranza, and how they’d taken refuge in the luxury cottage of one of Vector’s Joiner allies.

The waystation was a far cry from that snug cottage, but it was hardly the worst place Theron had ever stayed. It may have been hastily constructed but the Mandalorians had done a good job, putting together a small, cozy shack that was nonetheless large enough to host a small unit. As the cabin was temporarily reserved for just the three of them there was plenty of room, for all that the grand tour only took a handful of minutes. There was a great-room – basically just a kitchen and an open seating area situated around a large fireplace – and two barracks-style bedrooms set on either side of the ‘fresher. The bedrooms had rows of bunkbeds, enough so that each room could comfortably sleep six. The ‘fresher was tiny, just a shower stall, sink and toilet (Theron had fond memories of the facilities at that Alderaanian luxury cabin; the main-floor shower stall had been orgy-sized), and Theron had to marvel at the idea of twelve Mandalorians sharing one single refresher – things would be tricky enough with just him, Vector and Miranza, never mind adding nine more people to the mix. And that was … pretty much it. A five-star resort on Makeb, it was not.

It was private, however, and it was away from Odessen, and it was secure. At the end of the day it was everything Theron could want.

Aside from the comedy of errors that had been the repeated cycle of maintenance issues, and then the not-exactly-minor space pirates problem, there had been no other complications in the journey from Odessen to the waystation. After the pirates had been dealt with – a relatively simple conversation with Caedan, who was so outraged at the idea of Theron and the others being attacked that Theron wouldn’t have been surprised if the Outlander had hopped on the first spaceship off Odessen to deal with them personally – Vector had spent a brief period in the kolto tank while Theron and Miranza patched each other up. Vector had sustained a concussion when the tractor beam had snagged the _Star of Ubrixia_ – it was what had delayed him getting to the bridge in the first place – but a few hours in kolto put him to rights. Miranza’s injuries were largely superficial; as Theron had suspected, the Imperial spy knew how to make a fight look worse than it was, and she had suffered far, far worse in the past. By the time the three of them were standing on the unnamed planet they were in about as good condition as they had been departing Odessen, and in Vector’s case, thanks to the kolto submersion, much better.

Once they had arrived at the waystation Theron had landed the _Star_ in the nearby clearing and let Vector handle the post-flight check while he began unloading their luggage, gear and supplies. Despite some last-minute healing from Oriana and Senya – and his restorative stint in the kolto tank – both Miranza and Vector were still under orders to limit themselves to light duty and avoid heavy lifting, and as a result Theron was playing the role of baggage handler for the trip. Miranza had been exhausted from the journey and so Theron had let her doze on the ship until he had the waystation set up; once the climate controls were set and there was a small fire burning merrily on the hearth he sent her inside to rest.

There wasn’t a lot of gear to unload. Theron had lived a transient, ascetic existence his entire life and had always traveled light (unless one wanted to count emotional baggage, which he did _not),_ and Miranza and Vector had been living out of the _Mercurial_ for close to a decade. There were only a few pieces of luggage between the three of them – there would have been less, but they had needed to pack their cold-weather gear and that took up a lot of room – as well as the food and medical supplies they would need for the length of their stay. The Mandalorians kept the pantry and medical cabinets well-stocked, but Theron had been taught to leave his campsites the way he had found them and it was only proper etiquette to replace what they used. (Besides that, most of the Mando supplies were labelled in Mando’a, which the three of them barely spoke much less read: unless they wanted to chance mistaking heart medicine for antacids or packets of hot sauce for cream, it was probably for the best if they used their own supplies.) They had managed to bring along some fresh produce from Odessen and Theron was hopeful that Miranza would treat them to some of her galaxy-class cooking.

Theron took his time getting the waystation set up, partly just from the joy of unpacking (it was strange, he loathed packing for any reason, but unpacking? Unpacking was fun), but mostly to buy all three of them time to unwind in privacy. The unspoken agreement not to discuss anything important en route to the planet ended when they reached the waystation, and Theron was in no particular hurry to begin what was likely to be the first in a number of serious and uncomfortable conversations. 

That the three of them needed to talk was obvious enough, even to a man who had spent the majority of his life simultaneously yearning for and running away from committed relationships. It was just that – as with most important conversations – none of it would be easy. Darths Jadzira and Occlus, Ryshan, the things Miranza had done while possessed, Theron’s drinking: there were no safe topics and nothing they could put off until they were all in a better head-space. Even the easiest thing – their earlier forays into establishing the nature of their relationship, and whether or not the three of them wanted to be open – wasn’t exactly _easy._ It was just marginally less painful than talking about debts owed and repaid, autonomies lost and regained, demons conquered and demons still to face. But that was the point of this ‘vacation’: for the three of them to try and recover – _together_ – from the terrible experiences of the past year and change.

Theron also suspected that part of the point was to get Miranza out of Caedan’s sight, even if that had never been explicitly stated. The ritual exorcism – or whatever you wanted to call it – may have freed Miranza from the wraith’s influence, but that didn’t mean the Commander was any more thrilled to have her around. She _was_ dangerous, she _had_ been a threat, and the Jedi Master had yet to make up his mind as to whether or not he wanted her to remain on Odessen. Theron was hopeful that removing Miranza from Caedan’s immediate vicinity would enable the Jedi to consider the fact that Miranza had been a founding member of the Alliance long before she had been possessed. Theron trusted in Lana’s persuasive skills, and the additional backing of Oriana and Felix wouldn’t hurt. Caedan was a reasonable man, Theron was sure of that; once he’d had time to cool down and think over Miranza’s contributions to the Alliance, Theron was positive the Jedi would permit her to stay on Odessen.

Ducking out of the bedroom Theron was surprised to see Vector hauling a mattress out of the other barracks-style room and into the great-room. In the time that Theron had been unloading their luggage, the Joiner had managed to haul out three of the six mattresses, as well as a sizeable host of pillows and blankets. _So much for that ‘no heavy lifting’ rule,_ Theron thought. What seemed like the entire contents of the second bedroom had been deposited in the middle of the great-room floor, between the couches and in front of the now-roaring fireplace. He was stacking the mattresses in two rows, effectively creating a king-sized bed three mattresses high. Miranza – moving stiffly and with great precision – was standing on a chair, carefully draping one sheet off a set of antlers (Theron was unable to identify most of the mounted animal heads that served as décor for the waystation) and letting it hang down to the floor.

“Uh,” Theron began, momentarily stumped. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before asking, “What’s going on here?”

“We are making a fort,” Vector replied with considerable relish. Miranza gave Theron a half-hearted shrug and twitched the sheet into place.

“A fort,” Theron repeated.

“Yes.” Vector set the fourth mattress into place, then ducked back into the second bedroom to procure a fifth.

“You mean, like … like a blanket fort?”

Vector set the fifth mattress down and brushed sweat out of his eyes. He was breathing heavily from his exertions but didn’t seem to be in any physical distress, so Theron decided to stow the ‘you’re supposed to be taking it easy’ lecture for the time being. The Joiner beamed at Theron. “A blanket and pillow fort, yes.”

“Because …?” Theron felt like he’d stepped into some kind of strange dream, possibly one that was the result of indulging in far too many hallucinogenics. There was something particularly absurd about the sight of the tall, elegant Joiner engaging in such a childish activity as building a kriffing _blanket fort._ The fact that Miranza just seemed to be blithely going along with things simply added to the ridiculousness of it all.

“Because we want to,” Vector replied simply, then went to retrieve the sixth mattress.

Theron gave Miranza a helpless look, silently begging her to explain things to him. She shrugged again and climbed down from the chair, carrying it across the great-room in order to begin affixing yet another sheet in place. The draped sheets gave the effect of the stack of mattresses being inside a sort of tent, and had the added bonus of softening the great-room’s hard edges. The Mandalorians had not decorated with comfort or softness in mind, and the mounted animals and paintings of triumphant hunts were not exactly to Theron’s tastes. He was uncertain as to whether or not the fort would improve matters - it was just such an alien concept to him - but he was willing to trust Vector’s judgment in the matter. And stars, if building a blanket fort made Vector happy, then Theron was all for it. Even if it _was_ weird - and vastly outside Theron’s realm of experience.

Vector came out with the last mattress and added it to the pile. In truth Theron had rather wondered how the three of them were going to sleep together when the waystation’s barracks consisted solely of single-person bunkbeds. They had experience sharing cramped quarters, but the comfortable captain’s bed on the _Mercurial_ was considerably larger than a twin-sized mattress and while Miranza may have been tiny, Theron and Vector were hardly what one might call ‘small.’ Theron _had_ considered sleeping out in the great-room, but in his experience mattresses on the floor didn’t make for the best sleeping situation. He hadn’t expected that Vector’s solution would be to build a giant fort in the middle of the Mandalorian waystation. He wondered what the Mandalorians would make of it; knowing Rekka and Barrazhat the way he did, he suspected they would be all for it.

“We take it you have never participated in the creation of a blanket fort before?” Vector asked. He spent a few minutes adjusting the pile of mattresses to his liking, making sure there was enough room on around the edges to ensure freedom of movement throughout the great-room. It was a bit of unnecessary fussing: there wasn’t that much space available, and the mattresses took up the bulk of it.

“No,” Theron said shortly, “I have not. I was raised in a cave, Vector. _Literally.”_

There were, he suspected, a large number of childhood rituals that he had missed out on. Part of that could be written off as the relic of him being an only child, and the often solitary existence he had shared with Master Zho. Theron could count on one hand the number of times he and Master Zho had encountered other children in their travels, and the old Jedi had been incredibly leery of letting his young ward spend much time in the company of others, even when those others had been kids his own age. His mentor had considered such interactions to be too dangerous; Theron had spent a significant portion of his early years in hiding, or moving from one planet to another in order to stay ahead of potential (and largely unknown and unseen) enemies. On the few occasions there had been other kids around, Theron hadn’t been encouraged to play with them. He couldn’t even imagine what they would have done, or how he would have gone about introducing himself to them in order to facilitate play. (He could barely conceive a notion of what shape that play would have taken, so limited were his experiences in this respect. Master Zho hadn’t been big on childish pursuits.) The other part of it – the part that needled at him, deep inside in that pit of bitterness at everything he had missed out on in the name of a legacy he would never contribute to – was that Master Zho had not seen himself as raising a _child._ He had been raising a Jedi; in his mind, possibly the greatest Jedi of all time. There hadn’t been many opportunities for childish play. Theron’s daily routine had consisted of fasting, meditation, combat training and other decidedly non-childlike activities. There had been no room in that routine for playtime, no room for anything outside of the rigorous training designed to strengthen and encourage the aptitude of a young Jedi. That Theron was not and would never be Force-sensitive hadn’t even occurred to Master Zho.

Building a blanket fort had … not been on the list of Jedi-sanctioned pastimes.

“Me, neither,” Miranza said, hanging another sheet up over the pile of mattresses. She and Theron exchanged glances, each taking comfort in the knowledge that theirs was not the only fucked-up childhood. Isolation and training with an elderly Jedi or conditioning and training in a super-secret spy boarding school: neither Theron nor Miranza could be said to be the poster-boy or -girl for idyllic upbringings. If their childhoods had been squandered - and Theron could not deny the fact that they _had_ been - at least it gave them a shared point of reference, experiences vastly different from whatever Vector had grown up with.

“Well,” Vector said, “we have.” He dumped a pile of pillows – judging by the sheer volume, Theron assumed the Joiner had emptied out both bedrooms – on top of the mattresses, and shared a peaceful, contented smile with the pair of them. “We used to do this all the time with our sister and brothers.”

Theron choked, gaping at the other man. He had been expecting confessions and revelations, but this admission came out of nowhere. “I didn’t know you had any siblings.”

Vector blinked at him for a moment, face suddenly gone still and blank, then he smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah. Yes. We are the eldest of four. We have a sister and two brothers.” He licked his lips before adding, almost diffidently, “There were also a number of foster children. After our father retired from the Imperial Military he and Mother began taking in the more high-risk fosters. It was … There were always rather a lot of children around, of varying ages. Our mother had always wanted a large family.”

This was the first Theron had ever heard Vector make any mention of his family. The things Theron knew about the Joiner’s life before his time as an Imperial diplomat could fit on the head of a pin: he knew Vector was from the planet Jurio, he knew his father had been in the military, and he knew Vector had severed ties with his family after his Joining. Discovering that Vector was one of many children, after years of knowing next to nothing about the Joiner’s family and history, was a bit like meeting Satele Shan for the first time: it felt like Theron’s reality was subtly shifting to realign itself, what he knew and what he only _thought_ he knew coming into direct conflict with each other.

“You’ve never mentioned them before,” Theron said, although a quick glance in Miranza’s direction revealed that the blonde was nowhere near as stunned by this revelation as Theron himself was. Likely Vector had told her about his family, sometime prior to Theron entering their lives. None of this was a surprise to her.

The idea of Vector being the oldest sibling – in a veritable and ever-rotating army of children – made a certain kind of sense to Theron, for all that it came as a surprise. The man was a natural-born mediator and negotiator, after all. He must have needed to be, growing up with so many younger brothers and sisters to deal with. Theron couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be surrounded by so many other children. Truth be told, he was a bit envious.

Vector shifted uncomfortably, elegant, long-fingered hand trailing over one of the pillows.

“It is a … difficult topic,” the Joiner said hesitantly. He smiled faintly at the pillows, the rest of his face still blank and empty. After a moment he looked up at Theron, and Theron could see the sorrow and bitterness written clearly across the shadowed planes of his face. “Many of the children our parents took in were …” He sighed heavily, struggling with how best to frame it. “They were _difficult,_ and most other foster families wouldn’t take them. Many had been bounced from one home to another before they came to live with us. Behavioural problems, learning disabilities, physical disabilities … Our parents welcomed them all, each and every one. Every child was made to feel that they belonged, that they were a part of our family for however long they chose to be. It is … It was …”

He faltered, sitting on the edge of his stack of mattresses, and took one of the pillows onto his lap. He stared down at the pillow, making faces at it.

“After we were Joined, for a time we thought of nothing but the Oroboro Nest and our duties to the hive,” he said, after a few minutes’ careful consideration. He spoke down to the pillow, frowning. “Later, we tried … We reached out to our family, to let them know we still lived and were well.” Vector gave Miranza a fleetingly sunny smile before returning his gaze to the pillow on his lap. “We wanted them to know about our wife and our successes in establishing an alliance between the Killiks and the Empire. We wanted them to … to be happy for us. To be proud of what we had become, what we had accomplished.”

He licked his lips again, then said, in the quietest of voices, “They wanted nothing to do with us.”

The statement was not unexpected, and yet Theron’s heart fell in his chest. He sat down next to Vector on the mattress and, after a brief moment of hesitation, drew the pillow out of the Joiner’s lap to take both hands in his. Theron noticed the faintest of trembles in Vector’s hands.

A weight fell on the other side of the mattress: Miranza, settling in on Vector’s other side.

“We thought,” Vector began, then paused, reconsidering his words. “We wondered how our parents could be so welcoming and accepting of these other children, and not … not to us.”

_“Aliit ori'shya tal'din,”_ Miranza murmured, rubbing her cheek along Vector’s shoulder much like a cat marking its possessions. Theron had heard the Mando’a fall from Rekka’s or Barrazhat’s lips often enough that he didn’t need it translated: _Family is more than blood._ It was a concept he wouldn’t have been able to understand prior to falling in love with the two Imperial spies, but in the years they’d been together it had come to make perfect sense to him. They were his family, more so than the man and woman he was biologically related to, and the only blood shared between them was what had been spilled or shed on each other’s behalf.

“Indeed,” Vector replied agreeably, and this time Theron could hear the faint smile in his voice. The Joiner sighed. “In any event, it is an old hurt, and one we have grown accustomed to. We do not speak of it because there is nothing to speak about, truly. We are not the only orphan here, after all – and besides, _we_ at least were grown when our abandonment happened. We were not simply discarded in the galaxy as children.”

Theron felt a pang at that statement, and closed his eyes, briefly savouring the righteous indignation in Vector’s voice. Some days he thought Vector was more upset about Theron’s childhood than he was. But then, as Vector had said, for Theron it was an old hurt. Theron had had a long time to try to get over the pain of being left on Tython by Master Zho and then subsequently drummed out of the Jedi Order. That it angered Vector and Miranza meant that someone – some _ones_ – in the galaxy cared about his pain and that now, at least, he was no longer abandoned. It was no wonder it should bother the two Imperials more than it did Theron, however: Vector and Miranza were the ones who had to deal with Theron’s insecurities and abandonment issues on a daily basis. Theron just had to _exist_ and soak up all their support.

“Well,” Vector said, after a few minutes of awkward, moody silence. He spoke with forced good cheer, squeezing Theron’s fingers before pushing up off the mattress to stand and face the two of them. “This was rather more melancholy than we had planned. Let’s finish making the fort – yes, Theron we will instruct you,” he added, when Theron opened his mouth to protest his ignorance in the production of blanket forts. “We can speak on this later, if you please. For now, however, we require a break.”

O o O o O

If anyone had ever told Theron that at some point in his life he would find himself snuggled inside a blanket fort with a pair of Imperial spies he would have assumed this would-be prophet had suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury.

And yet there he was, a grown man on the wrong side of thirty, sprawled on a pile of mattresses with his head on the lap of one Imperial spy and the other spy feeding him grapes, inside a rather impressive-looking blanket fort in the middle of a Mandalorian waystation. There was a fire in the fireplace, their temporary accommodations were all set up, and Miranza had thrown together a neat little plate of finger-foods for them to snack on while they spoke. Their fort – which Theron was honestly kind of excited about, now that he let himself get over his embarrassment at the idea of being a grown adult playing in a blanket fort – consisted of the triple-stack of mattresses Vector had hauled in from one of the bedrooms, over which a number of loose sheets were strategically draped. There were a ton of pillows (each bunk had two pillows and they had brought their own from the ship), a nest of blankets, sheets and sleeping bags, and another mattress brought in from the other bedroom to provide a makeshift “wall” along one side of the sleeping area. It was thoroughly ridiculous.

Theron loved it.

He was a little unclear on blanket fort etiquette, but so far all Vector seemed to expect from him and Miranza (who was equally confused, but willing to roll with it) was that they cuddle together in their nest of blankets. Theron could do that. He lay with his head in Miranza’s lap, her fingers stroking through his hair, and Vector sprawled beside him, casually picking through the food Miranza had prepared and hand-feeding select tidbits to Theron. At any point Theron expected one of them to start braiding the other’s hair and gossiping about boys (that was what you did at a sleepover, right?), or maybe a pillow-fight would break out. (Theron had seen more than a few holovids where the latter activity led to more … adult … entertainment, and he was one hundred percent on board with that.)

As strategies went, this was a good one. Theron felt relaxed and silly, but not in an uncomfortable way, more in the sense that everything was grand and vaguely hilarious all at the same time. Given that the chief purpose of this vacation was to provide the three of them with the opportunity to reconnect and sort through all the trauma of the past year, it was smart of Vector to create an environment that was warm and inviting. It was hard for Theron to get too wrapped up in his own dark thoughts when the world around him was so soft and comforting.

On the other hand, Theron was also reluctant to broach any difficult subjects when he felt so calm and happy. The three of them had a lot to discuss, very little of it pleasant, and he had the feeling that one wrong word or comment might shatter his contentment. He wanted this safe, soft happiness to last forever. He wanted their difficult conversations to be over and done with - or to not be necessary in the first place. He wanted to appreciate this moment where he could safely entertain the idea of engaging in more physical intimacy - a desire that had become rather hit or miss with him of late - and where the three of them could just _be._

Theron wasn’t a coward, however, and they _were_ there to talk.

“So,” he began, swallowing a mouthful of sharp cheese. It was hard to eat lying down, but he was in no hurry to get up and Vector seemed to enjoy feeding him. He hadn’t choked yet, so that was a plus. “Where should we … um … Where should we start?”

Miranza’s hand stilled in his hair; then, after a lengthy pause, she began twisting one of the longer strands around her finger. Her voice was very deliberate when she asked, “Where would you like to start, Theron?”

“Honestly? Nowhere,” he admitted, then sighed. “But we should probably talk, right?”

Vector popped a slice of apple between Theron’s lips. Theron bit down delicately, mouthing at the tip of the Joiner’s finger, then took the apple into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. While he was eating, Vector was speaking: “Perhaps we might ease into things with a less … fraught … topic?”

“Such as?” Theron asked, around another mouthful of apple. He was aware of Vector and Miranza exchanging glances above him, but there was no tension in Miranza’s hand on his head, and Vector’s expression was serene. He had the impression the two of them had already discussed some of the issues at hand, and that they had come to this little retreat prepared. It might have bothered him to know how much time and effort the two of them put into “managing” him, save for the fact that he put just as much thought into doing the same for them.

“We’re going to have a grown-up conversation,” Miranza said, amusement clear in her voice.

“A grown-up conversation?” Theron repeated, with a meaningful glance up at the sheets draped overhead. “In our blanket fort?”

“Yes,” Miranza confirmed. “A grown-up conversation, in our grown-up blanket fort. Where we talk about our feelings and our relationship and where we want it to go.”

Theron feigned a look of disgust. “Ugh, sounds horrible. Hard pass.”

Both Vector and Miranza burst out laughing, the sound – all too rare lately – warming Theron all the way down to his core. Miranza smacked him lightly on the chest before going back to playing with his hair.

“Brat,” she said, with so much fondness in her voice that Theron found his eyes watering a little. Vector popped another hunk of cheese into Theron’s mouth before he could reply; he glared at the Joiner and chewed. The platter of finger-foods was perfect, an assortment of meat and cheeses and fruit chosen from all of their favourites. Miranza had been the one to put the plate together – given her still-healing injuries she wasn’t able to do much of the heavy-lifting, but kitchen prep was very much within her wheelhouse – but Theron suspected Vector had been the one to select the food. Miranza knew best what flavours mixed well together; Vector knew best what they all _liked._

“Okay,” Theron said after swallowing, “Let’s talk about our relationship.” The uneasiness in his voice was only half-pretend: he was not, and likely never would be, comfortable with this kind of conversation. In his experience there was only ever one kind of relationship talk, and that was the talk that ended things. Intellectually he knew that Miranza and Vector had not brought him to an unnamed planet in the middle of Wild Space just to break things off with him, but emotionally there was a very large part of Theron that was entirely too familiar with people deciding they’d had enough of him and setting (or tossing) him aside. And he couldn’t deny that things between the three of them were complicated – and that a solid chunk of those complications were the direct result of his involvement.

Still. He could be brave. “Where do we start?”

“Well,” Miranza began, scratching her nails over his scalp, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

_Dead,_ Theron immediately thought, not so much a case of wishful thinking as it was simply an acknowledgement of how dangerous their lives were. He’d never been able to look at the big picture, at the steps he needed to take in order to reach some desired future. He dealt with the here and now and hoped that someone else took the helm for the rest of the planning. Life - _his_ life - was far too dangerous for him to look beyond the next day, the next week, the next month. Five years from now? Would there even be a galaxy left for them to live in, or would Arcann have stomped out their little Alliance like the small, insignificant insects they were? He knew that wasn’t the answer Vector or Miranza wanted to hear, however, so what he said was, “With you. With both of you.”

Vector smiled and set the plate – now mostly bare, although Theron eyed the last remaining pieces of cheese longingly – aside on the floor. “Yes, good,” he said, “but do you see yourself with only us, or is there room or desire, do you think, for others?”

“I …” Theron hesitated. He didn’t know how to answer that question; it felt like a trap to him. What was allowed here? Vector and Miranza had stated in the past that Theron sleeping with other people wasn’t a deal-breaker for them, but that couldn’t really be true, could it? People didn’t … They didn’t _do_ that, did they? Being raised with the expectation of no attachments - if not outright celibacy - had not lent itself to preparing Theron for the kind of relationship he now enjoyed with Vector and Miranza. His only frame of reference was sleeping with Ryshan, and that … that probably didn’t count. The two Imperials had not been happy about Theron sleeping with Ryshan. Was it because Theron had violated some rule he didn’t know about, or was it because Ryshan was an asshole?

That it was because Ryshan had hurt him - repeatedly - did not even occur to Theron. He was too busy trying to figure out the rules.

“Theron, love,” Vector said, tone impossibly gentle, “We do not think there is a wrong answer here. If you wanted to engage in romantic relations with others—”

“Like Caedan, for example,” Miranza interrupted, giving Theron a toothy smile.

Theron suspected Vector rolled his eyes. The all-black combination made it impossible to say for certain, but there was a twitch to the Joiner’s face that suggested he was doing _something_ with his ocular muscles.

“—We would have no issue with that,” the Joiner finished, otherwise ignoring his wife’s interruption. “If you were simply interested in casual sexual dalliances with others” – how, Theron wondered, _how_ did one man make sex sound so boring and clinical? – “we would have no issue with that, either. And if you simply wanted it to be the three of us, that would also be perfectly acceptable.”

_Oh._ It hadn’t really occurred to Theron – and perhaps it _should_ have – that Vector and Miranza might be interested in sleeping with other people. Of late he’d had admittedly conflicted thoughts about sex and had only occasionally reached out to either or both of them for intimacy; ever since he’d come back from Darth Jadzira he had struggled to regain a sense of balance and comfort within his own skin, and sexuality had certainly played a difficult and complicated part in that. His run-ins with Ryshan certainly hadn’t helped, either; even Theron was self-aware enough to know that his latest hookup with Ryshan had been an effort to hurt himself, rather than him acting out of any actual sexual interest. He hadn’t wanted sex, he had wanted annihilation, and that … that probably wasn’t healthy. He could at least acknowledge that he didn’t want _that_ kind of sexual relationship with them. But Vector and Miranza didn’t have the same hang-ups, obviously, and maybe they were tired of waiting around for him. Maybe this was their subtle way of saying they wanted to branch out, since Theron was so much work. Maybe they were trying to say - kindly, because they weren’t the sort of people who would hurt him carelessly or maliciously - that since Theron wasn’t capable of meeting their needs right now, they wanted to find someone else who _could_.

“If you … um … If you guys wanted other sexual partners” – there, Theron could be clinical too – “that would … um … I would be okay with that.”

Vector eyed him skeptically. Belatedly it occurred to Theron that trying to bluff a man who could literally read his aura was perhaps not the brightest idea he’d ever had. But he didn’t know how to say that he wasn’t sure what he wanted or how he felt. The thought of Miranza or Vector hooking up with other people didn’t bother him, exactly (if he was being honest with himself, he found the idea of one or both of them with other people somewhat arousing), it just made him feel confused. It wasn’t so much jealousy as a fear of losing what he had with them, and even that fear was tempered by the knowledge that no matter what, they loved him. He knew, also, that love and sex were not necessarily the same thing (boy, did he ever know that), and that the two of them had been in an open relationship long before he had come along. They made a lot of concessions for him. He _got_ that.

“Theron,” Miranza said carefully, tugging hard on his hair, “We want whatever makes you happy. We’re not going to ask anything more of you than you’re prepared to give.”

Theron sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face, exhaling a huff of irritation. “I don’t know _what_ I want. I don’t know how I feel about you sleeping with other people. I don’t know how I feel about _me_ sleeping with other people. But I don’t want to … to get in the way of anything.”

“You’re not,” said Miranza. She was about to say something more but Vector held up one hand and shook his head. His dark hair, normally swept back from his face with styling product, was loose and slightly tousled from the exertion of building the fort, and strands of it fell in his eyes. He brushed it back with a mild look of annoyance, then smiled at Theron.

“Why don’t we table this discussion for now?” the Joiner suggested amicably. “We’ve much ground to cover and it sounds like this issue isn’t quite so straightforward as we had presumed. For the time being, love, simply think about how you feel and what you want, and if the time comes when you decide there is another you might be interested in, we can discuss the matter then. Nothing needs to be set in stone today.”

“That … that sounds fair,” Theron said, returning the smile. He stayed sitting upright, settling into a cross-legged position while Miranza stretched out her legs behind him. Hating how shaky his voice sounded, he asked, “Okay, what’s next?”

O o O o O

The three of them had the waystation reserved for at least a week, with Rekka and Barrazhat emphasizing that they could easily arrange for them to have more time there if necessary. Consequently there was no rush for them to solve all their problems and hash out every issue all in the first night, or even in the first few days. They were all tired and emotionally wrought; further deep, meaningful conversations could wait until the next day, or the one after that. They could take their time. It was a luxury Theron was unfamiliar with, but one he intended to enjoy. After the subject of an open relationship was tabled Miranza took the plate into the kitchen area to clean up, and Theron and Vector took turns using the ‘fresher. Some time later they found themselves curled up in their nest of blankets again, cuddling and trading lazy, sloppy kisses.

It was nice. Comforting. There was no sense that things needed to progress beyond kissing, there was no pressure to perform or to reciprocate, it was just soft, warm cuddles and the press of lips on lips. It was pretty much the only pace Theron could handle at the moment; he was too keyed up from their earlier conversations to go beyond making out, at least for the time being. And because it was Vector and Miranza, there was no suggestion that they weren’t completely happy with what they were doing, no efforts on their part to push Theron outside his comfort zone. He wasn’t in the right head-space for sex, but he was definitely on board to touch and be touched in turn.

He knew that at some point during this vacation they were going to need to talk about Darth Jadzira and what she and her servants had done to Theron. It wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to; in fact, out of all the painful discussions they needed to have, it was the one he was most dreading, but probably also the most necessary. He knew that Vector and Miranza had _some_ idea of what the Sith lord had done to him - it wasn’t as though he’d been terribly successful at hiding the impact his experiences had made on him - but he hadn’t ever really gone into the details, nor did he particularly want to. The acute damage - the drugs he’d been forced on, the psychic trauma Darth Jadzira had inflicted upon him - had been obvious enough and were largely healed. The rest of it, though? He didn’t know how to talk about that. He’d _never_ been good about talking about that sort of thing, even when he’d been in therapy back on Coruscant. He knew he was lousy at masking the symptoms: he startled too easily, he still couldn’t bear to look upon his own reflection, his appetite and sleep were still disrupted, and sex … sex was a fucking nightmare at times. He never knew whether he would enter into a moment of intimacy with Vector and Miranza only to run away screaming or if everything would just _work_ and he’d be okay - not just okay, but completely and enthusiastically on board with everything - or if it’d be one of those times where his mind might be into it but his body didn’t feel like putting in the effort. It was _exhausting_ and he felt like he owed his two lovers an explanation, but had no clue where to even start.

He didn’t want to discuss Darth Jadzira. He wanted to pretend none of it had ever happened.

They needed to discuss it. Maybe if Vector and Miranza knew - if they _really knew_ what had happened to him - they would be able to help him through it.

But they didn’t need to discuss it _right now_. For the moment, Theron could just revel in the gentle, loving affection of his two partners, and luxuriate in the knowledge that neither Vector nor Miranza would try to push him outside his comfort zone. They were safe. _He_ was _safe_.

The cheery glow from the hearth cast golden light over the three of them, painting a picture Theron wanted to memorize every last detail of. Vector lay curved around Theron, his straight black hair mussed from careless fingers, his lips slick and kiss-swollen. His eyes, black as the spaces between the stars, had gone hooded and sleepy. He was still clothed – they all were, as much a concession to the cooler temperatures as a means of reassuring Theron that this needn’t go any further than gentle, dreamy kisses – but the hem of his soft red T-shirt was rucked up almost to his armpits, baring the muscled abs that spoke of his prowess as a fighter. Curled up against Theron’s back – a jetpack rather than the big spoon – Miranza was warm and affectionate, hands stroking up and down Theron’s bare arms, her cream-pale skin a delightful contrast to his own darker colouring. In the firelight her platinum hair appeared brassy gold again while the blue of her eyes was almost dark enough to appear black. And in the middle, Theron was a study in shades of brown: his spiky dark hair every bit as tousled as Vector’s, his dusky skin flushed and glowing, his hazel eyes gone dark and heavy-lidded. Theron knew the three of them were beautiful together, a painting come to life; Vector, with his vast cultural knowledge and abiding love of poetic speech, probably could have suggested which artistic style they most resembled and then could have described them in loving tones, but the only word Theron needed to define them was _home._

Night was falling. Between their flight and landing on the unnamed planet, then unpacking and setting everything up inside the waystation, it had been a long, full day. Their conversations – first Vector’s confession regarding his family, then their talk about their relationship, still unfinished – had left Theron feeling drained but somewhat relieved, as if by making it through the first of their emotionally-charged discussions unscathed he was reassured that further such talks would prove to be equally undamaging. He wasn’t looking forward to having the rest of their uncomfortable conversations, but at least now he had reason to hope they would go well. It was unreasonable to think that this brief respite would be all it would take to undo months of hurt and anger and grief, but for once in his life Theron felt optimistic enough to believe it would be a good start, a step in the right direction. Together the three of them, alone in a Mandalorian waystation on a tiny, unimportant planet in the middle of Wild Space, could finally begin to put the dark past behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's lyrics are from "Górecki" by Lamb.
> 
> This shouldn't need saying but I'll say it anyway: Theron's thoughts and feelings are not a reflection on the opinions of the author. He's got some shit to work through. This isn't a how-to guide on overcoming trauma.


	50. Hello Time Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unanticipated complications arise. Vector is 100% Done With Everything. Theron has an unexpected response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, 50 chapters? What am I even doing with my life?!? :D I'm not even anywhere near done yet ... Anyway, thank you for sticking with me this far!

_**Wild Space, Six Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Dawn was just a few hours away when Miranza tumbled out of one last nightmare to find herself snuggled between two warm, sleeping men. She had managed to latch herself like a limpet to the lean curves of Vector’s body – no surprise there, of the three of them Vector was the furnace and Theron was just as much of a heat-leech as she was – and her legs were tangled with Theron’s. The men were both right out, Vector facedown on the mattress, arms out-flung up over his head, Theron sprawled on his back and snoring like a wampa with a head-cold. They were warm and cuddly and yet she was somehow still cold.

The last vestiges of her nightmare still clung to her, fragmented and fuzzy. Something about … being chased? She remembered running and hiding and very little else.

Miranza freed her legs from Theron’s and wriggled over onto her back, staring upwards at the drape of dark fabric overhead. Her heart was still hammering in her chest but the sight of Vector’s blanket fort – and the absurd, delightful memories she now associated with it – eased her tension somewhat. He’d said he’d built the fort because he wanted to, but she knew his main motivation was to create a safe, comforting environment where the three of them could talk. It was next to impossible to feel bad inside of a blanket fort. That was just fact.

She didn’t feel bad, exactly, but she _was_ cold and now that she was awake her bladder was reminding her that it had been some time since she’d last used the ‘fresher. No help for it, then: she would have to get up.

It took some careful maneuvering for her to squeeze out from between the two slumbering men, but Miranza managed to wiggle her way down to the bottom of the mattress. As soon as she popped out of the fort she saw the reason why she felt so cold: the fire had been allowed to die in the hearth, and while the waystation had climate controls they had been turned down for the night in order to spare fuel. No matter; she had a vague idea about how to tend a fire.

The ‘fresher could wait; she wanted to come back to a nice, warm great-room and crawl directly back into bed the moment she was done taking care of the necessities. Hunching down next to the hearth Miranza sorted through the available firewood – the Mandalorians had provided a sizeable stash but they would need to chop more if they were going to go through it this quickly – and selected what she thought were suitably-sized logs. She rebuilt the fire, adjusting things to her liking, then hunted around for the electric lighter.

For some reason the sight of the small device made her feel uneasy. She chalked it up to her lack of experience in using such a thing: she was not a camper, and she’d never actually handled a lighter quite like this one. It was, she thought, an older model, one the Mandalorians had left behind in the event other users of the waystation were not so well-supplied. She had used fire-starters before - not that she had a _lot_ of wilderness survival training, but there had been some few camping trips in her life - but none of them were as outdated as this. It was clunky and awkward and seemed much too large for her hands.

Miranza’s inexperience showed. There was some weird setup that prevented her from activating the lighter: it had two buttons, one at the top of the handle, one at the bottom, and the user had to depress both buttons at the exact same time in order to get it to work. Clearly the device had been intended for someone with much larger hands (or at least longer fingers) because no matter how she adjusted her grip on the lighter she couldn’t manage to get her fingers into the proper position. She fussed with it, growing increasingly frustrated and embarrassed – honestly, she was a grown woman, how could she not manage to do this? – until she heard a faint, sleepy chuckle from behind her.

Theron leaned over the edge of the mattress, watching her fumble with the lighter. “Need a hand?”

“Apparently.” She succeeded in keeping the annoyance out of her voice as she handed Theron the lighter. She felt a faint ripple of unease at the sight of the device in his hands, but it quickly disappeared under the irritation over exposing her own ineptitude in such a fashion. “There must be some trick to it.” She decided not to point out that if there _was_ a trick, _he_ had been the one who had neglected to show it to her. He’d set up the hearth, after all; this was really his responsibility.

He shook his head in mock disappointment, _tsk_ ing to himself. “Top-level cipher agent, foiled by a tricksy Mando fire-starter. The shame.”

Ignoring his teasing with the regal composure of a queen - rather than the embarrassment of a woman caught demonstrating her inexperience with what should have been a simple mechanical device - Miranza pushed herself to her feet as Theron took her place in front of the fire. The former SIS operative was already fiddling with the pieces of wood she had chosen, swapping out logs and restacking the fireplace to suit whatever arcane design struck his fancy. The process seemed far more involved than she had anticipated, and frankly she was content to let him handle it, if he was going to be so fussy about such things. _Obviously_ she just wasn’t meant for such menial tasks. _Obviously._ Patting him on the head, she padded away on bare feet towards the ‘fresher.

She made it about three steps when there was a strange electrical sound, vaguely similar to the start-up hum of a lightsaber.

_THUD._

It wasn’t until she felt the pain in her knees that Miranza realized she had dropped to the ground. She was hunched over, bowing, her forehead pressed to the hardwood floor so hard the grain of the wood dug into her skin. Her back arched, her hands – palms flat to the floorboards – outstretched in a position of supplication. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t move she couldn’t move she couldn’t –

_Fire exploded in her side, sparking a trail along her veins and throughout her entire body. She wouldn’t bow down. This wasn’t in the agreement. She wasn’t a slave. She –_

“Miranza?” Theron’s voice, high and panicky. “Vector, wake up, there’s something –”

_She wanted to grab the modified stun-baton out of her Master’s hands and jab it into the bitch’s ribs, see how she liked it. Instead she was down on the floor, her cheek resting against her Master’s boot, and her entire body was on fire. Her Master sensed – or saw – her defiance. The stun-baton dipped down again, this time touching the curve of her shoulder, and she screamed and –_

“Beloved, you must come back to us.” This time it was Vector, sounding every bit as anxious as Theron had. She wanted to speak, wanted to warn them that her Master was coming, that if they didn’t follow her example she would hurt them and –

Warm hands, cupping her face. Strong arms, wrapped tight around her shoulders. Protecting her. Grounding her.

Miranza blinked. Vector’s face, drawn and worried, hovered inches before her own. She met his eyes and slowly, ever so slowly, he relaxed. The pressure around her shoulders did not ease and it took her a few seconds to realize it was Theron holding her; Vector held her face, his smooth hands gone cold with panic. They encircled her, bodies pressed in close, trying to guard her from demons they couldn’t see.

“Are you with us?” Vector murmured. She felt Theron let out a shuddering sigh behind her, his forehead pressed in between her shoulder blades.

_Are you with us? Am I?_ She didn’t know. She thought – _maybe._ She might be. She didn’t know where she’d gone. At least she knew where she _was:_ in the waystation, bracketed on either side by the two men who loved her. Her knees were aching, throbbing where they’d struck the floor in her haste to bow. She would have bruises later. She remembered, dimly, that her knees had always been bruised - before. With her Master. Her back was sore, too, but it was a remembered pain, it wasn’t real. Memories of fire traced through her nerves, sparks lighting and dying again as she tried to ground herself.

“What happened?” Theron asked, breath warm against the fabric of her T-shirt. She was so, so cold.

“What was that sound?” she asked, ignoring his question in favour of her own.

“We do not hear anything,” Vector said slowly. He hadn’t let go of her face, his thumbs stroking along her cheekbones with such deliberate gentleness she wanted to cry.

She pulled back, not because she didn’t want him to touch her, but because she needed space. Theron, behind her, gave her room, his embracing arms falling away.

“No, not now, before.” She cocked her head, trying to remember. There had been … a noise? Something like … like a lightsaber, almost? No, that wasn’t right, not a lightsaber. Her eyes, searching the room, fell on the electronic fire-starter, discarded next to the hearth when Theron had rushed to her side. The sight of it made her feel sick to her stomach. She didn’t know why; she’d never seen or handled such a thing before today. She pointed at the lighter, meeting Vector’s anxious gaze. “There. _That.”_

It was Theron who stood and went over to retrieve the lighter, bringing it back to them. “This?” He sounded confused, and no wonder: the lighter was harmless, designed only to provide enough of a spark to ignite some tinder. A child couldn’t have used it to hurt themselves – that was what had fouled Miranza up, she hadn’t been able to figure out the childproofing mechanism – and yet the sight of it in Theron’s hands sent a shiver of fear rippling through her.

“Could you …” Miranza had to pause, the words suddenly caught in her throat. This was ridiculous. It was a kriffing lighter. She shouldn’t be this terrified of the damned thing. She swallowed, then made herself say the words: “Could you activate it again? Please?”

Theron’s confusion was palpable, but the word ‘please’ had scarcely left her lips before he took the fire-starter in hand and activated the trigger mechanism. That _click_ -hum sounded again, like a lightsaber and yet not.

Miranza fell into a bow. This time around she was already crouching, so there was no need to drop to her knees. She just fell forward, head to the floorboards, hands stretched out above her. Her back itched with the fear of exposure; she found herself bracing for the next strike. She was too exposed, but this was how she was supposed to be: supplicating, subservient. It felt right and wrong at the same time.

She couldn’t move. If she moved she would be punished.

Her body ached from holding her position for so long. She was certain that when she finally stood again, she would have the patterns of the wood grain permanently etched into her forehead. Her hands and feet were numb. She was afraid that her knees would not be able to support her weight when her Master finally ordered her to her feet, and if she couldn’t stand properly she would be punished.

Her Master liked to set her up for failure.

A loud clattering sound startled Miranza out of her memories: Theron had thrown the fire-starter across the room and it had landed on the wooden floor, skittering off under one of the couches. His arms wrapped around her shoulders again. Vector had come in close, his hands wrapped around hers. They were both trying to pull her upright, out of her submissive posture.

“Beloved,” Vector said, drawing her up to her feet. There was a thread of panic in his voice. “Let us get you back to bed.”

She drew away, her hands falling from his grasp. She jerked her chin in the direction of the ‘fresher. “I need to …” She couldn’t finish the sentence, but both men nodded at her in understanding and Theron released her. She turned and fled, ducking into the waystation’s only ‘fresher and slamming the door shut behind her. After a moment’s hesitation she turned and drew the deadbolt. She didn’t think Vector or Theron would try to come in after her, but she didn’t feel like taking the chance.

Alone in the tiny ‘fresher Miranza drifted towards the sink, yanking down the towel that they kept draped over the mirror for Theron’s sake. She stared at herself in the mirror, searching her reflection for any indication that the wraith had returned – _as if I would be able to tell_ – but her features remained unchanged. Her eyes were still dark blue and her platinum hair was beginning to darken again at the roots. Her pale skin was tinted with pinks rather than blues. She looked haunted and hunted, but she still looked like _herself._ She wasn’t, so far as she could tell, possessed. The last time when Darth Occlus changed her, it had happened quickly.

Bladder temporarily overcoming her anxieties Miranza made use of the toilet unit, then flushed, and washed her hands. She took longer than she needed to, trying to get the warm soapy water to lend its heat to more than just her fingertips, but it was no use. She was chilled down to the bone and it had little to do with the temperature of the waystation. She draped the towel back over the mirror and sat down on the lid of the toilet, her head in her hands.

What the kriff was wrong with her?

The noise of the fire-starter played over and over again inside her head. With each repetition she felt the urge to drop to her knees and bow, but as the sound was only in her mind there was no strong compulsion to follow through on the action. There was just a sense of uneasiness at not bowing, as though she was bracing herself for the repercussions.

Her hands, clenched tight over her head, were shaking. She was taken back years ago, back to when Ardun Kothe and Hunter had activated her hidden conditioning program with a single word. This could not be happening again. It couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. She had used the IX serum to reprogram herself; she had made herself immune to further mind control. And it had worked: when the Star Cabal had captured her again, they had tried and failed to reactivate her conditioning. It had _worked._

_Click_ -hum played in the back of her mind, and with it came the urge to fling herself to the ground in supplication.

_Okay, think._ Miranza tore her fingers through her curls, yanking viciously at the pale strands so that the pain of it cut like a knife through her mounting hysteria. If Darth Occlus had somehow managed to break through her reprogramming and she was under the effects of mind control again, what then? She couldn’t remember experiencing anything similar to what she had gone through in deprogramming herself, nor had Darth Occlus done any of the procedures the Star Cabal had performed on her on Corellia. Then again, Miranza couldn’t remember what, exactly, Imperial Intelligence had done to her in the first place, and it was not outside the realm of possibility that Darth Occlus could have forced her to forget.

So what then? What did this mean? If her own deprogramming had failed her, then it was possible that Theron would find himself in the same position. That bothered Miranza more than the knowledge of her own weakness. Theron had suffered so much more under the Castellan restraints, and he was already struggling _so much._ Did she tell him? Did she keep it to herself?

Because keeping secrets had worked out so well for her in the past.

Besides, Vector and Theron had already seen her response to the lighter. They were both intelligent men; they would connect the dots.

All right, then: damage control. The first obvious step would be to ensure she never crossed paths with Darth Occlus again, but that had already been her intention. The Sith lord would be furious about Miranza breaking free of the wraith; the reinstitution of her Castellan restraints was just the shit icing on a shit cake. The next step would be to steer clear of anyone who might have cause to activate those restraints – Amrielle and the Star Cabal were at the very top of _that_ particular list – and to ensure Theron was kept out of their reach as well. Again, though, those were steps they were already taking.

Could she deprogram herself again? She already knew the ingredients that went into creating the IX serum; she could acquire them again. Doc Lokin had been the one to help her formulate the serum and she had no idea where he was now, but she was smart, she could do it without his help. She was sure of it.

The IX serum was damaging. The effects were cumulative. If she used it on herself again, what were the risks? Permanent brain damage? Some sort of persistent vegetative state? Death?

Death was preferable to being someone’s puppet.

She could do this. She had already done this. _She would do this._

Thus fortified, Miranza splashed some cold water over her face, straightened her shoulders, and marched calmly out of the ‘fresher.

Theron was sprawled on one of the couches, casually reviewing a datapad while waiting for her. At some point during Miranza’s mini-breakdown in the ‘fresher someone – probably Theron – had gotten the fire going again, and the great-room was already comfortably warm. There was no sign of Vector.

“Hey,” Theron said, looking up at her. He had a deceptively neutral expression on his face. “How you doin’?”

Miranza ignored his question; the answer was fairly obvious, in her estimation. Instead she asked him a question of her own: “Where’s Vector?”

Something shifted across Theron’s face and then was gone. He set the datapad aside and stood up, coming to stand in front of her. He kept one hand behind his back; his posture was calm, casual, but the fact that he was clearly hiding something from her made her uncomfortable, and she kept some distance between them.

“He went out for a walk.” Before Miranza could process the hurt that statement made her feel, Theron raised a hand - the one _not_ hidden behind his back - and gave her an apologetic smile. “I asked him to step out for a while. I wanted to talk to you by myself, first.”

“Why?” Miranza asked him, unable to hide the wariness in her voice.

Theron’s hand – the one not tucked behind his back, as if she couldn’t tell he was hiding something – reached out to her. After a moment’s hesitation she took it, still preserving a careful distance between them. His hand was warm, his thumb stroking gently over her skin.

“Because I know what this feels like,” he said, tone unbearably gentle. His clear hazel eyes searched her face, a sympathetic smile tugging at his lips. He did know, too: he’d experienced the Castellan restraints. He knew what it was like to have his body act on another’s commands, with no input or control from his own mind. He knew what it was like to be trapped inside his head, screaming, while others used him for their own dark purposes.

“We broke the Castellan restraints,” Miranza whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loudly that would somehow make this all more real. “We’re supposed to be immune to mind control.”

Theron tugged her hand, urging her closer. She allowed it, letting him draw her into an embrace, her head buried against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head, his breath rustling her curls, and when he spoke again his voice was a warm rumble against her cheek.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, “I have a theory about that, actually.”

“Oh?” She looked up at him, curious.

“Yeah,” he said again. “I’d like to test that theory, if you’ll let me.” He revealed his other hand, the one he’d kept hidden; she was unsurprised to see the fire-starter clutched in his palm. The sight of it made her stomach ache and her mouth go dry, but she didn’t pull away. She wanted to ask him what his theory was, but she had a sneaking suspicion what testing it meant, and the words wouldn’t come. Instead he released her again although he kept hold of one of her hands, fingers squeezing tightly around hers.

“I want to activate this,” he said, confirming her suspicions. His fingers gave another squeeze. “I want you to hold my hand and when you hear that sound, I want you to do everything in your power to ignore it. Whatever your brain is telling you to do – _don’t._ Just hold my hand – squeeze it if you have to, I don’t mind – and keep standing. Can you do that?”

Miranza swallowed around her dry mouth, trying to beat back the rising tide of panic that threatened to overwhelm her. Theron’s hold on her grounded her, his hand her lifeline. She nodded slowly, heart thudding dully in her chest. After a moment he squeezed her hand again – and with his other hand, activated the fire-starter.

The noise seared through her. Her knees went weak, her entire body struggling with the desperate desire to hit the ground and fall into that terrible submissive pose. She clutched Theron’s hand, her fingers digging in so hard she knew they would leave marks on his tan skin. A warning screamed in the back of her mind, klaxons going off: if she didn’t comply she would be hurt. Bow or be punished. Kneel or there would be consequences. Comply. _Submit._ Her chest ached, her head pounded, her ears were ringing with every rapid beat of her heart.

Her knees gave and she fell forward, but Theron was there, quick to catch her. She didn’t hit the ground. She needed to be on the ground. If she didn’t bow – if she didn’t comply – her Master –

Instead of falling to the ground Miranza was yanked upright, pulled hard against the solid wall of muscle that was Theron’s body. Her knees were shaking, her breath coming in too hard and far too fast. A hand – the one not currently trapped in her death-grip – curled under her chin, drawing her face up. Theron’s face, so close to hers, was filled with warmth and compassion. He kissed her forehead, murmuring nonsense words, his voice a steady constant that somehow managed to drown out the awful sound of the fire-starter going off inside her head.

Miranza had no idea how long the two of them stayed locked together like that, her fighting the urge to fall to her knees, Theron holding her tight against him, preventing her from kneeling. Eventually, however, that terrible compulsion faded, and she sagged forward into his embrace, all the strength going out of her.

Theron helped her over to the couch, all but carrying her across the great-room before setting her down gently. He sat down beside her, so close his thigh was pressed against hers. Somehow throughout all of this he managed to maintain his grip on her hand, and she found herself squeezing his fingers for the sake of reassurance.

“You did good, Miri,” he told her, forcing her to meet his gaze. “So good. I’m so proud of you.”

“I fell,” she whispered back. She wanted to cry. She wanted to fling herself into his arms. She wanted to lock herself in the ‘fresher and never come out. She felt restless, her entire body twitching and tingling with the need to move, to obey, to submit.

“You did _good,”_ Theron insisted, voice a low growl. “And that proved my theory. Wanna hear it?”

_No._ “Yes.”

Theron looked excited, face awash with hope. “This isn’t the Castellan restraints, Miri. This isn’t mind control.”

She blinked at him. Of course it was.

“It’s not,” he said, seeing the expression on her face. “You said it yourself when we first talked about what Darth Occlus had done. It’s not mind control – it’s _conditioning._ You’re conditioned, Miri.”

Trapped as she was in her own misery, Miranza failed to see the difference. Castellan restraints, mind control, Sith sorcery, conditioning: what difference did it make? Her mind was not her own. She was a puppet. She was someone’s toy. _Again._

Still able to read her perfectly, Theron reached out and gripped her chin. His expression was earnest, hopeful.

“This isn’t drugs or implants or the Force,” he said. He was speaking rapidly, the need to make her understand forcing him to get the words out as quickly as possible before her doubts and fears could override him. “This is psychology. Darth Occlus has conditioned you to certain behaviours, that’s all. Think about it. When you hear that sound, what does it mean to you?”

Miranza considered his words carefully before answering, “Bow or be punished.”

“What is that sound, to you?” he asked. “It’s not just a fire-starter, I know that much. What are you really hearing?”

She could picture the device perfectly in her mind, and Theron was right, it wasn’t a lighter she was seeing. “A stun-baton. Modified to cause pain. It … She would touch me with it, and it was … it was like fire, everywhere. She used it on me when I … when I wasn’t obedient.”

Theron’s grip tightened on her chin until he forced himself to be calm. He shot her an apologetic glance as he let her go, his hand stroking along the curve of her jawline instead.

“Okay, that’s good,” he said, then hastily corrected himself: “It’s not good that she did that to you, but it’s good that you know what it was and what it meant. So Darth Occlus used the stun-baton to discipline you, right? And now you hear the sound and immediately fall into the position she trained you to use. See? Conditioning. You could resist it, but your mind is bracing for punishment, because that’s what happened when you disobeyed. Your body isn’t acting without you, there isn’t some hidden command inside your head that’s making you move. It’s just … like, if you’re alone in the woods and you hear a twig snap behind you, you turn towards the sound or you run away. Your instincts tell you how to react to that sound. It’s the same thing. Your instincts are telling you that when you hear that stun-baton, your ass had better be bowing or there’ll be consequences.”

Miranza turned his words over carefully, trying to pick them apart, to find fault with his explanation. She couldn’t. It made sense. She had already known that Darth Occlus had trained her to be unable to speak about the procedures she had undergone and to respond in certain ways to her Master’s commands. It worried her that she couldn’t remember this additional conditioning, but if it involved significant amounts of pain – well, the mind had ways of protecting itself. Perhaps she had blocked out the memories in order to preserve her own sanity. Force knew there had been enough craziness going on at Darth Occlus’s compound.

“So what does this mean?” she asked him, after she’d considered his words in silence.

Theron gave her a wry grin. “Well, babe, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.” Without waiting for her to make a choice between the two he continued, “The bad news is, this probably isn’t the only trigger. You’re probably conditioned to other behaviours, things we haven’t seen yet because the triggers haven’t come up, or we didn’t notice because they didn’t have such a profound impact on you.”

The idea of there being more things – potentially worse things than bowing every time she heard a fire-starter or stun-baton being activated – made her blood run cold. She couldn’t afford these kinds of vulnerabilities. What if she’d heard that sound while in the middle of an op? What would have happened if, on Nar Shaddaa in the midst of slicing the security console, one of the attacking droids had used a weapon or device that made similar sounds? Caedan’s lightsaber, now that she considered the matter, came perilously close to making that same noise, and she realized now how uncomfortable it had made her to hear it. Close, but not close enough to trigger her – but worrying nonetheless.

“And the good news?” she asked at last, forcing herself not to dwell on things that mercifully had not happened.

Theron’s grin broadened. “The goods new, darlin’, is that conditioning can be _broken.”_

O o O o O

The sun was just beginning to peek above the trees when Theron left the waystation in search of Vector. He and Miranza had talked for a while – he hadn’t thought to look at a chrono when her fiddling with the fireplace had woken him up, nor had he paid any attention to the time while the two of them were talking – and by the time he felt comfortable leaving her to her own devices, it was morning and neither of them saw any point in going back to bed. They could always nap later, if they were tired.

Theron felt vaguely guilty for sending Vector away, but the Joiner’s frustration over the situation had been palpable, and as Theron had told Miranza, he knew what she was going through – and Vector did not. Theron had experienced the hell that was Castellan restraints and mind control; he knew what it was like to rally against his own mind, to feel his body taken over by another’s will. Vector, thank the Force, did not. The closest Vector could come to understanding what it was like was in his interactions with the Oroboro Nest, and for all that Theron knew his lover had had no say in his Joining, overall Vector was not unhappy with that fate. He had more control over himself than most other Joiners did, by virtue of being the Dawn Herald. He wasn’t a puppet. He wasn’t a _slave._

Theron had had the restraints used on him. He’d been a slave of the Star Cabal. More specifically, he’d been the personal toy of a sick and sadistic bastard who had taken great pleasure in turning Theron’s body against him. And then, years later, he’d been Darth Jadzira’s slave.

Yeah, he knew exactly how Miranza felt. And Vector, bless his kind, perfect heart, would throw himself over and over again at that misery in an effort to understand it, but without ever having gone through the experience it was something he could never hope to really connect to. (Theron prayed to the Force and to a host of deities he didn’t believe in that Vector would _never_ be able to fully understand.) It frustrated Vector to know that this was a problem he could not solve, that horrible things had been done to his partners that he, someone whose entire identity had been shaped around forging connections and bridging understandings, simply could not fathom.

Fortunately, Theron suspected he was really onto something with the whole conditioning thing. (He had to believe this. To think otherwise would be to acknowledge the notion that perhaps neither he nor Miranza were truly free of the Castellan restraints, and he wasn’t sure he could live within that reality.) His grasp on psychology – the academic aspect of it, at least; as a spy he had a firmer understanding on the technical applications – was limited to a few expansion courses offered through the Republic Military, but the principle, he thought, was sound. Darth Occlus wasn’t using Sith-y magic on Miranza and she hadn’t figured out a way to get the Castellan restraints to work against her (assuming she even knew about the restraints in the first place). She was just using psychology, tricking Miranza’s brain into doing the things she wanted through repeated interactions. Ring the bell and the tuk’ata salivate – it’s not the bell making them hungry, it’s that every time the bell has been rung in the past, food has been produced. Strike up the stun-baton (or the fire-starter) and the Imperial agent falls to her knees. The stun-baton doesn’t make her drop, it’s the knowledge that failing to do so will result in punishment.

He’s terrified to think about all the other ways this has been used against her. So far this was the first evidence of a trigger that they’d seen – or at least the first that he had known about, and judging by her panicky reaction he felt confident in believing there had been no others – but Theron knew enough about the Sith to know there would be more. His only hope is that future triggers can be discovered in a similarly safe setting. Yes, it was devastating for Miranza to learn this about herself, but at least it had happened while she was alone with him and Vector, when they weren’t in the middle of an operation (or worse, in the middle of a fire-fight), and she was safe.

Miranza had wanted to start breaking the compulsions right away, of course, but Theron thought it would be a better idea to wait a day or two, to give her time to calm down and recover from the shock. Ultimately it would be her choice when and where to start the desensitization process – it was, after all, her mind – but she had eventually agreed with him that this morning would not be ideal. Instead she had decided to make the three of them breakfast, and Theron’s taste buds were completely on board with her choice of coping mechanism.

The morning was dawning crisp and clear, cold enough that Theron could see his breath puffing out into little clouds in the air. It had snowed during the night – Barrazhat had warned that the planet saw a significant amount of snow in the winter – and he could easily follow the trail of footprints leading from the waystation out into the woods. Vector had gone for a walk several hours ago, by Theron’s estimation, but from the sound of things he hadn’t gone far.

At first Theron felt a slight thrill of alarm at the noises he heard from the clearing up ahead. Grunts, thuds, something solid smacking into something else: it sounded like a fight. When he entered the clearing, however, there was only Vector putting himself through his paces, a makeshift quarterstaff in hand as he beat the ever-loving hell out of a particularly robust conifer.

For all that they frequently trained and fought together it was rare for Theron to get to stand back and just … watch. He knew Vector was a fierce combatant; he knew that ‘Dawn Herald’ was more than just a fancy, poetic-sounding title. In sparring sessions Vector was graceful and athletic, spinning the wooden training staff around like a baton, making every movement seem like part of an elaborate dance. In combat he was stalwart and brave, throwing himself in front of their enemies, relying on his superior strength and stamina in conjunction with top-quality shielding tech to ensure they all walked away from the fight. But this? This was ferocity unleashed.

Vector held nothing back.

The quarterstaff – a hefty-looking branch almost as long as Theron was tall – whipped around in his hands, spinning end to end before colliding violently with the trunk of the tree. Every time his staff connected, shards of bark went flying and pine needles rained down upon his head. The snow underfoot had been stomped down into a hard-packed square that left him plenty of room to maneuver, and the tree – Vector’s tree – had already had all the snow knocked clean off its branches, unlike every other tree in the vicinity. He lay into the tree-trunk with his quarterstaff, grunting with the impact, breath coming in great heaving gasps as he rained blow after blow against the weathered conifer. He was sweating and red-cheeked and wild-eyed and _fucking gorgeous._

At some point Vector had removed the heavy winter jacket he’d donned when leaving the waystation; it was draped over a nearby tree branch, along with the old T-shirt he’d worn to bed. Stripped down to the waist, the weak morning sunlight made the sweat glisten over the sleek lines of muscle and the faded scars over his back. Steam rose from his skin; he would be cold later, but for now Theron could practically feel the heat roiling off of him – and Vector had always run hot.

_Fuck. Me,_ Theron thought, not entirely sure if that was a demand or an exclamation. His mouth had gone dry.

A twig snapped under Theron’s foot and Vector whirled around, staff at the ready. For a brief terrifying moment Theron had the impression that Vector wasn’t seeing him, and he was suddenly wondering if he ought to have come armed (or at least armoured), but then the quarterstaff lowered as Vector stared at him, breathing heavily.

Embarrassed at having been caught staring (although he couldn’t for the life of him have explained why, since he stared at Vector and Miranza all the time), Theron felt his cheeks flush and was grateful for both his darker colouring and the weak sunlight. He coughed to clear his throat, then gave the battered tree a meaningful glance.

“Tree piss you off?” he asked, tone deliberately light.

Vector gave the quarterstaff a lazy spin before letting one end slam into the snow at his feet. He leaned against it, wiping at the sweat on his forehead with the back of one hand. His hair had fallen into his face, damp strands sticking to his cheeks.

“How is she?” he asked without preamble, ignoring Theron’s facetious question.

“She’s fine,” Theron answered, grateful to be able to tell the truth – and knowing full well that the Joiner could read it in his aura. “She was rattled, but … she’s fine. She’ll _be_ fine. It’s not the Castellan restraints, Vector. We can break it. We have a plan.”

Vector nodded slowly, face perfectly blank. Theron suspected the Joiner didn’t quite believe him, but that was okay for now – soon they would be back inside the waystation and the three of them could discuss the problem together, and knowing that they really did have a plan would alleviate most of Vector’s concerns. Hopefully. In the meantime …

“Are _you_ okay?” Theron asked, as Vector moved past him to retrieve his T-shirt.

The Joiner paused, shirt in hand, and stared off into the woods. Theron could practically hear the other man thinking.

“We are … very tired of this,” he said finally, and Theron knew Vector wasn’t talking about beating the crap out of an innocent tree. He stood, turning the T-shirt over and over again in his hands, and continued, “We swore to be a protector, but this … we keep running into things we cannot protect you from. It is wearying.”

“Wearying?” Theron repeated. The word seemed rather weak for how pent-up the Joiner was.

Vector smiled humorlessly and shook his head. It was a strangely helpless gesture that seemed out of place when contrasted with his current slightly feral appearance. Someone so tall and muscular and _strong_ shouldn’t look so lost.

“We’re furious,” he admitted quietly. “We wish to grab Darth Occlus by the throat and rip her limb from limb. We want to – _Ah._ It does not matter. What we want will fix nothing. We are powerless. We have _been_ powerless from the moment Amrielle began tormenting Miranza through messages. Since then it has been one thing after another, and none of it anything we can prevent or stand against.”

With quick, efficient motions Vector tossed his shirt back onto the branch and snatched up his staff again. Spinning on his heel, he turned towards the tree and gave it another series of brutal strikes, his quarterstaff slamming in a rapid string of blows that landed in a near-perfect line from about a foot overhead all the way down to the ground. He paused again, his breath now coming in measured gasps, and glanced at Theron over one sweat-dampened shoulder before focusing on the tree in front of him.

“Amrielle.” _Thwack._ The quarterstaff gouged off a chunk of bark, sending it flying somewhere overhead. “The bounties on Miranza’s head.” _Thwack._ Pine needles scattered over them, fragrant and green. “Strix kidnapping you.” _Thwack._ “That bloody fucking auction.” _Thwack._ The Joiner swore so infrequently that Theron started, eyes widening. Vector’s next words came out in a vicious snarl, each word punctuated by another solid strike on the tree: “Darth Jadzira. Darth Occlus. Ryshan _fucking_ Esselby.”

Upon the last word the blow was so hard the quarterstaff cracked in half, one end flying off into a nearby bush. Vector let out an enraged bellow and hurled the other half out into the woods where it collided with another tree and splintered into dozens of smaller pieces. He stood, hands clenching and unclenching into fists, and panted for breath, sides shuddering as he gasped in cold winter air.

“We want to wrap the both of you up in cotton batting and set you on a shelf somewhere so that you can be safe,” he said, words broken up by gasps. He met Theron’s eyes, and there was a wild anger there – and hurt – that cut Theron to the bone. “We cannot. There is no way to keep you both safe, and _it is killing us.”_

“Vector …,” Theron began hesitantly, with no clue where the hell he was going with this.

“No. Stop.” Vector raised his hand, and to Theron’s horror it was shaking. “This is not … This is not your doing. You are the wronged party here. We … We have not been made to suffer what you and Miranza have suffered. We are not the one Amrielle is tormenting. We –”

“You’re the one who has to watch from the sidelines while his lovers are being tortured,” Theron said, cutting him off before he could continue explaining how this wasn’t just as horrible for Vector to witness as it was for him and Miranza to experience. “If that isn’t torment, Vector, I don’t know what the fuck is.”

Vector’s shoulders sagged. “It is not the same, Theron.”

“Shut the fuck up, Vector. It’s not a competition.” Theron remembered his therapist saying something like that, back when he was still attending work-mandated counselling sessions on Coruscant. He had said … well, he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, but it had probably been something foolish about how he couldn’t complain about what he’d been through because other people had been through worse. What he could remember was the way that Doctor Zywes had looked at him like he’d grown another head (a stupider head, at that) and patiently talked him through just how wrong and damaging that mentality was.

“Trauma is trauma,” Theron went on, jabbing his finger towards – but not quite touching – Vector’s bared chest. Now that the Joiner was standing still gooseflesh was starting to prickle across his skin; he would need to get dressed again soon. “Pain is pain. You wouldn’t be half this fucked up if these things had happened to you, I don’t think. What’s fucking you up is that it’s me and Miri who’re being messed with and you have to watch.”

“We think,” Vector said carefully, eyeing Theron’s finger, “that we would be just as ‘fucked up’ were it us in your stead. It would just be in a different manner.” He gave Theron a crooked smile. “When did you get to be so smart, love?”

Theron gave an exaggerated shrug. “I’ve had good teachers.”

Vector eyed him for a moment, a long, calculating glance that took in the sight of Theron from head to toe and then back up again. Steam was still curling up over his skin but his hair was beginning to freeze in dark jagged slices, turning the ends white. He looked like something fey and wild that had stumbled out of the woods, like one of the stories Theron had read as a child where strange creatures fell upon unwitting travellers to make dangerous bargains. Theron had the sense that Vector was coiled, waiting, all his pent-up energy lurking under the skin until he would explode with it. He wasn’t calmer, he wasn’t happy, he was just biding his time until he could explode somewhere in safety.

“We should very much like to kiss you right now, love,” Vector said softly, moving in closer but not quite touching Theron. There was something vaguely predatory about him, and it made Theron’s heart pound loudly in his chest.

Theron’s cheeks flushed again. “Yeah, I gotta admit, this whole … righteous avenger thing you’ve got going right now? It’s _really_ working for me.”

Vector’s hands crushed into the fabric of Theron’s jacket, gripping him tightly and spinning the smaller man around until he was facing the opposite direction. The next thing Theron knew Vector had slammed him back against the tree and the Joiner’s lips were pressed hard to his. Vector’s mouth was cold but Theron found himself melting against him nonetheless.

Whatever uncertainty and restraint Theron had felt the night before was gone in the face of the sudden insistent hunger that tore through him the moment Vector’s lips met his. He found himself gripping at the Joiner’s hips, pulling Vector in closer, mouth opening to admit Vector’s tongue. He groaned into Vector’s mouth as the Joiner worked a knee between Theron’s legs, nudging against the growing hardness he found there. Vector’s hands dug into Theron’s jacket, pinning him up against the tree in a way that might have made Theron uneasy had he not already been caught up in admiring Vector’s ferocity. This wasn’t a side of Vector that Theron got to see often, and he was determined to enjoy every second of it, especially since his body and mind seemed to be in complete agreement for a change.

Theron’s hands worked their way around to the front of Vector’s trousers, scrabbling desperately at the fastenings there. Vector broke away from their kiss, laughing, and nipped at Theron’s jaw.

“Not here,” the Joiner said, suddenly breathless from an entirely different kind of strain. “We’ll freeze our arses off. We’re already half-frozen.”

“Whose fault is that?” Theron grumbled, but Vector yanked him away from the tree, pausing only long enough to grab his clothes off the nearby branch before pulling him in the direction of the waystation.

“Come on,” Vector said, stopping to kiss Theron breathless. “We’ll ravage you once we are inside the waystation, where it’s warm.”

_Fuck. Me,_ Theron thought again, and this time he was pretty sure it was a directive. “That’d better be a fucking promise.”

The wicked smile Vector shot Theron’s way was all the confirmation he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hello Time Bomb" is by the Matthew Good Band.
> 
> For the record, Miranza, I struggle with BBQ lighters too. Damn childproofing features ...
> 
> Wait, wait, wait ... Disaster spy to the rescue again? Theron's getting his groove back.
> 
> Oh, look, a smutty cliffhanger ... In all honesty I had intended for the smut to happen in this chapter but it was running long, so ... next chapter, promise!


	51. Make This City Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes come across some complications, Theron and Caedan have a much-needed chat, and Crumpet utterly fails to deliver on her promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline, the Jedi Knight storyline, and the first installment of Fire Meet Detonite "The Voices of Thieves and Robbers."

_**Wild Space, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Barrazhat Vyziari’s helmet, clipped to the back of his belt, seemed to be winking at her. There was a massive crack in the T-shaped visor – which was why the black and red helmet was on Barrazhat’s belt instead of on his head where it was supposed to be – right over the left eye, and as the helmet bounced and jostled with every step Barrazhat took that crack gave the appearance of a sly wink. Every time Miranza found her gaze drawn back to the damaged visor she had the distinct impression it was mocking her. Then again, the entire time she’d been on the derelict spaceship she’d felt herself to be the brunt of some great cosmic joke, and she wasn’t laughing.

Part of the sense of wrongness came from the fact that the Outlander had elected to split the party, and rather than teaming her up with Theron and Vector the Jedi Master had put her with himself and Barrazhat, teaming Barrazhat’s wife Rekka with Miranza’s partners instead. Miranza had known going into this operation that the entire setup was meant as a test for her – to determine her loyalties as well as her present stability and suitability for continued work with the Alliance – but the current team dynamics felt a little on the nose to her. Caedan didn’t trust her and that was fine, it was to be expected after everything she’d done, but there was a reason she worked so well with Theron and Vector, and it wasn’t just because the three of them were sleeping together. They trusted each other; she didn’t trust Caedan any more than he trusted her. At least she could rely upon Barrazhat to be on her side, and the Pureblood was as unhappy about the team split as she was.

On the plus side, Miranza had saved Barrazhat’s life – the blast that had trashed his helmet would have done much worse had she not been quick on her feet – and that had earned her some respect from Caedan. Granted, the Jedi had always respected her skills as a fighter and an operative; it was her personality traits that he had issues with, and she didn’t have any intention of changing _those_ any time soon. At least putting her own life on the line to save the big bad bounty hunter had to have made an impression with Master Savarr. The man was a Jedi, after all: they were all about self-sacrifice.

At least, she hoped that would be the case. Short of single-handedly taking down Emperor Arcann and the entirety of the Eternal Fleet, Miranza wasn’t exactly sure what else she could do to win the Jedi Master over. And she needed to win Caedan Savarr over if she wanted to remain on Odessen. Miranza knew that if Caedan decided to exile her from Odessen Vector and Theron would go with her and the three of them could continue working for the Alliance from afar – just as they had done before the Odessen base was established and the Outlander freed from carbonite – but she knew they were needed at the base. More than that, she knew the three of them needed the base themselves, needed the security and support the Alliance could provide. She didn’t want to go back to living out of the _Mercurial,_ wandering from planet to planet and from operation to operation. After everything the three of them had been through they needed a safe haven like Odessen.

_“Manka One, do you copy?”_ Theron’s voice crackled through Miranza’s comm. The derelict ship – one of the Star Destroyers that had been part of Darth Marr’s fleet – was massive, and the two teams were divided on opposite ends, stretching the limits of their personal comm systems. Theron and Rekka both had comms embedded in their implants; the rest of them had to make do with headsets. Barrazhat’s had been in his helmet, the destruction of which had left him temporarily offline.

“Copy, Two,” Caedan said. He paused at a T-junction, one hand on the hilt of his main-hand lightsaber. “We’re getting some static – either there’s interference or you’re at the range of our comms.”

_“A bit of both, I think,”_ Theron replied. He sounded slightly out of breath; Miranza wondered if his team had come into some fighting, or if he’d had to run somewhere. Aside from the blast that had almost taken Barrazhat out, Miranza’s own team hadn’t had any complications – thus far. The ship was deserted, the only dangers from unexploded ordnance and damaged systems. _“We found the medbay.”_

“And?” Caedan prompted, but even with the static on the lines Miranza knew Theron’s voice well enough to be able to read the disappointment in it. They had boarded the ship in the hopes of finding survivors from Darth Marr’s fleet; even if most of the soldiers aboard had been killed or taken prisoner by the Eternal Empire there had been some faint hope that there could be injured survivors stashed in the kolto tanks or cryo-pods. While rescuing survivors hadn’t been their main objective, it would have been a decent morale boost. Everyone on Odessen knew someone who had gone down with the fleet.

_“No luck,”_ Theron said, confirming Miranza’s suspicions. _“Tanks, pods and life-support are offline. They’ve probably been offline for years, judging from the bodies.”_

_Ah._ Miranza didn’t say anything out loud, but she did exchange meaningful glances with Barrazhat. There were mummified corpses littering the corridors of the ship, most of them too badly damaged to be recognizable by anything other than their Imperial uniforms, but the bodies in the kolto tanks would have been exposed to bacteria, moisture and oxidation, leading to the same kind of decomposition one would expect on-planet. Same with the cryo-pods: once life-support went offline the pods would have shut down, essentially turning them into giant petri dishes. All things considered Miranza was rather grateful she was on the other side of the ship. The medbay was probably rather unpleasant.

_“We are collecting dog-tags and other mementos,”_ said Vector over the comms. There was a burst of static before he continued, _“We will be able to send it on to Imperial Command, so that families can be properly notified.”_ Of _course_ Vector would worry about notifying Imperial families of their loved ones’ deaths; after seven years with no word the soldiers on board the ship would have been declared dead by the government, but it would be good to give their families closure. There were some cases of people being found on Zakuul or in neighbouring systems, but those stories were too few and far between for anyone to reasonably hope that such could have been the fate for those still missing.

“Thank you,” Caedan said fervently, auburn head lowered as he stared at the floor-plating. He looked around, chewing on his lower lip, then added, “We should do the same with these bodies. They … Their families should know what happened to them.”

Miranza and Barrazhat exchanged glances again, and the big Pureblood’s shoulders heaved with a deep sigh. This hadn’t been part of the mission parameters – they were on the ship to search for early-model skytroopers, for some project Doctor Oggurobb dreamed up – but Miranza was unsurprised by the Jedi making changes on the fly. She wasn’t even surprised by the fact that Caedan wanted to provide closure to Imperial families; someone else might have allowed those political boundaries to get in the way of their compassion, but Caedan Savarr was not that kind of person. Republic, Imperial or Zakuulan: the families deserved to know.

She would far rather be digging through skytrooper parts than poking at mummies, but orders were orders, and she did want Caedan to think well of her. Suppressing a sigh of her own Miranza hunched down next to one of the nearest bodies and began the unpleasant task of removing armour-plating and uniform jackets to get at the dog-tags underneath. Mummified corpses, at least, were marginally less disgusting than the ones that would be in the kolto tanks and cryo-pods; she wished Theron and his team the best of luck there.

After a few minutes of searching bodies, however, a strange pattern began to emerge. Her team had already noticed the distinct lack of skytrooper remains – Barrazhat had theorized that Eternal Empire policy might have been to remove their droids in order to ensure their enemies couldn’t reverse-engineer them – but they had still been operating under the assumption that the ship had been taken down by the Eternal Fleet. On upper decks there had been those pronged attack pods that bore into the ship’s hulls and deposited invaders, just as Caedan remembered happening on board the _Terminus;_ it had made sense to assume the same tactics would have been utilized here. But there were no fallen skytroopers aboard the derelict Imperial ship, at least none that they had found thus far, and now that Miranza was looking closely at the bodies she could find no evidence to indicate that these Imperial soldiers had been killed by droids. She was by no means an expert at forensic medicine, but it looked to her like these men and women had been killed in some sort of brawl. The mummified bodies bore signs of blunt-force trauma and stab wounds. In fact –

“These people killed each other,” Barrazhat said, frowning down at two corpses that had fallen together, bodies entwined in a gruesome parody of the act of love. His rich, deep baritone - distinctly tinged with a strong Imperial accent not unlike Miranza’s own - echoed down the corridors, creating an eerie effect. Peering down at the two bodies he was pointing at, Miranza could see what he was getting at. Clawed, desiccated fingers wrapped around throats; up close, Miranza could see vicious bite marks along the one woman’s jawline. She recognized the imprint of human teeth: no animal had done this. These people had done this _to each other._

“But why?” Caedan, who had been hunched over struggling with the straps of a dead Imperial’s breastplate, straightened and turned around in a circle, squinting at the bodies. “The ship was stranded, but they still had plenty of supplies. They couldn’t have been fighting over resources already.”

Shuddering at that mental image – something about the idea of being stranded somewhere and having to resort to cannibalism in order to survive bothered her on a deeply visceral level – Miranza flipped open the collar of another Imperial’s jacket, baring deep lines of gouges all down the man’s neck. She had been in enough rough-and-tumble brawls to recognize fingernail slashes when she saw them. She dimly remembered reading field reports about an incident on Odacer-Faustin some … what, fifteen years ago? Before the start of her career with Imperial Intelligence, certainly, although she’d probably been in school at the time. She remembered her fellow cadets scaring each other with stories about cannibals and ravening hordes of undead Sith. (Because living, breathing Sith weren’t terrifying enough.)

Miranza’s first instinct upon remembering Odacer-Faustin was to freak out, because if they’ve all been exposed to whatever terrible virus wiped out that Sith Academy then they’re all fucked, the worst kind of fucked. Fortunately her more rational, analytical mind took over and pointed out that while these dead Imperials did appear to have attacked each other, it didn’t look like they’d tried to _eat_ each other, and this was a fairly important distinction to make. There _were_ bite marks, but for the most part the dead men and women seemed to have died fighting; teeth were simply the most convenient weapons at hand. They had beaten each other to death, or stabbed one another, or been strangled, or any number of exceptionally violent, hands-on methods of murder and mayhem – but they hadn’t resorted to cannibalism.

It was horrifying to realize how relieved that made her feel.

Until another memory – more recent and much more personal – hit her.

Belsavis. Megasecurity Ward 23. SCORPIO.

_SLV-88._

_“Shit.”_ Miranza scrabbled backwards, away from the dead Imperials, and landed hard on her ass. Above her and a few feet away both Barrazhat and Caedan turned to look down at her, near-identical expressions of concern and confusion on their faces.

“What?” Both of Caedan’s hands were on the hilts of his lightsabers, ready to draw. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I know what this was,” Miranza said, managing to both push herself away from the bodies and up to her feet at the same time. “At least, I have an idea. We need to get out of here. We need to –”

A sudden growling over the comms cut her off and Miranza froze, blood running cold as she recognized the voice – and the growl. _Vector._ That was his “We’ve reached the end of our patience” growl, his “somebody is going to die” growl. He was a diplomat and a scholar, but underneath that, at his heart, Vector was a warrior. The Killiks had seen to it, and years of fighting at her side – in her defense – had honed it. That was the sound he made when she was in danger. When Theron was in danger.

It was also the sound he had made when SCORPIO had gassed the intruders on Belsavis, years before Vector and Miranza had ever met Theron, back when Miranza had first crossed paths with the Star Cabal.

Back when SCORPIO had tried to use SLV-88 – a dangerous aerosol created to heighten aggressiveness and control minds – to kill Miranza and her team. By then Miranza had already broken free of the Castellan restraints and rendered herself immune to mind control, but Vector had succumbed to the gas; she’d had to take him out of the fight first before she could deal with the rest of her exposed-and-suddenly-violent team.

Back then Vector had still been relatively new as a Joiner and Dawn Herald. He hadn’t had the years of training and experience that were now under his belt. He had been dangerous then, but nowhere near as dangerous as he was now.

_“Manka Four’s been compromised,”_ Rekka shouted over the comms, confirming Miranza’s fears. _“We –”_ The comm cut off with a sudden high-pitched squeal that made both Caedan and Miranza curse and clap their hands over their ears.

It was Barrazhat who suddenly broke into a run, heavily-armoured boots pounding down the metal plating of the ship’s corridors. Caedan – having no clue what was happening, only that Vector was down and Theron and Rekka were in danger – took off after him, twin lightsabers in hand. Cursing under her breath Miranza followed suit, albeit at a much slower, more cautious pace. Thus it happened that she was coming up to another T-intersection – both men having already disappeared around the left-hand corner – when she heard both Caedan and Barrazhat coughing, and saw the faint pinkish cloud that filled the corridor. Miranza skidded to a halt just as the odour – sickly-sweet, like fermenting fruit – hit her. She had enough time to realize that she recognized that scent – similar to the odour of the SLV-88 aerosol she had been exposed to on Belsavis, yet more chemical-smelling, almost like disinfectant – before Caedan came charging back around the corner, bright green eyes wide and glassy.

“Barrazhat, he’s –” the Jedi began, talking over his shoulder as he ran back towards Miranza. His lightsabers were out, brilliant blue light spilling down the corridor. He took one look at Miranza and his entire demeanour shifted, his generous mouth twisting in a vicious snarl. _“You!”_

_Me?_ Miranza thought, as Caedan suddenly surged towards her with an expression of malice on his handsome face. He made it about two steps before Barrazhat barrelled around the corner and slammed into him, long arms coiled tight around the Jedi’s waist. Both men went flying, the force of Barrazhat’s tackle propelling them both into Miranza with enough force to knock them all to the ground. She landed hard on her ass for the second time that day and had barely enough time to catch her breath before Caedan and Barrazhat were flailing at each other. Somewhere in the scuffle Caedan had managed to lose – or discard – his lightsabers; Barrazhat was similarly disarmed, and so the two of them were trading blows, Barrazhat’s gauntleted fists matching Caedan’s Force-imbued punches blow for blow.

Miranza had known Barrazhat for several years, and had fought alongside him and his wife for much of that time. The first time they’d ever met, they had been in combat against each other, on Darth Malgus’s space station. She had seen Barrazhat in the heat of battle, had seen him angry and fighting and vicious – but she had never seen such a look of rage as he wore upon his face now. His orange-yellow eyes shone with a feverish light as he threw himself at the Jedi.

At the Jedi, who was every bit as incensed – and directing his rage at Miranza.

Miranza tried to push herself back, away from Caedan’s fists. A hand – larger and heavier than Caedan’s – curled around her ankle, hauling her down the corridor. Barrazhat’s fingers squeezed, hard enough that Miranza could feel the bones of her ankle grinding together, and then Caedan tried to drag her back, his hand wrapping around her face. She bit him, teeth sinking into the exposed flesh between his gloves and his bracers, and he cried out in pain, letting her go. She kicked at Barrazhat with her free foot, the boot connecting solidly with the side of his face, but he held on tight and used his grip on her ankle to pull her in closer.

She felt like a bone fought over by a pair of hungry akk-dogs, dragged back and forth between the Jedi and the bounty hunter. Both men were ridiculously strong and exceptionally well-trained, and even with their higher reasoning obliterated by the gas – if it wasn’t SLV-88 it was something very similar – they were well-matched as fighters. Both had discarded or lost their weapons; both were trying to tear her – and each other – apart with their bare hands.

Miranza knew from past experience with the gas that there was little point in trying to get through to either of them; she hadn’t been able to talk Vector down on Belsavis, she wouldn’t be able to talk Caedan or Barrazhat down now. She didn’t have the breath for it in any case: she was too busy fighting for her life, hampered by the fact that she didn’t really want to hurt either of them – and the knowledge that they shared no such constraints.

She managed to get to her feet just as Caedan’s fist tangled in her hair, yanking her back down again. She found herself rather desperately missing the enhanced strength and stamina Darth Occlus had granted her – that, and the matched set of daggers she had been able to conjure at will. Now, armed with a sniper rifle she couldn’t use and a vibroknife she couldn’t reach, she was painfully aware of how badly the odds were against her. Even with Caedan and Barrazhat trying to kill each other in addition to their efforts to kill her, they weren’t so distracted that they were ignoring her.

Caedan used his grip on her hair to slam Miranza face-first into the durasteel floor plating. Pain exploded down the left side of her face and her vision greyed out, her world going spotty and dark. When she came to Barrazhat was trying to throttle Caedan – his heavy gauntlets making him clumsy – and Miranza’s face was sticky with blood. Something landed hard on her back, forcing her down again, and this time her forehead bounced off the grilled surface beneath her. Her vision stayed true, however, and she managed to get a hand down to the hilt of her vibroknife, tucked in the side of her boot. She switched the knife on and struck out at the hand that came toward her face, scoring a hit on Barrazhat’s bracer. The bounty hunter snarled and backhanded her, an almost casual slap that nonetheless sent her crashing back into the wall behind her. Her sniper rifle dug into her back; for a brief moment she considered drawing it, but in close quarters the best she could hope for would be to use it as a bludgeoning weapon. She had to get away, find someplace safe to hide or find –

Vector. _Shit._

No doubt Theron was in the same dire straits she was in. No, wait – maybe he wasn’t so badly off. Rekka was probably still wearing her helmet; the only reason Barrazhat had removed his was because it was too badly damaged to provide any protection. The two Mandalorians had climate controls and filtration systems built into their armour, so as long as Rekka was still wearing hers she wouldn’t have been exposed to the gas. Theron, at least, had the same immunities from mind control that Miranza had. Vector was dangerous, but so was Theron – although he would suffer the same restrictions that Miranza did, not wanting to hurt a man who would be quite intent upon killing him. She had to hope that between the two of them Rekka and Theron could keep Vector contained.

Caedan snagged the back of Miranza’s armoured jacket and yanked her backwards, into Barrazhat. She didn’t have enough time to dodge the fist the bounty hunter slammed into her gut. The force of the blow knocked the air from her lungs and left her doubled over; Barrazhat followed that punch up with another just as Caedan elbowed her from behind. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could barely move to defend herself. Instinct brought her vibroknife up in time to block another blow from the Pureblood, taking the hit on the vibrating blade rather than wherever he had been aiming. The blade scraped over his _beskar’gam_ gauntlet, leaving scratches in the paint but otherwise doing no damage, and he easily knocked it out of her hand. When he moved in to close with her she dove forward and head-butted Barrazhat as hard as she could with the top of her head. He staggered back, bringing his hand up to strike her again, only for Caedan to use his grip on Miranza’s jacket to throw her down the corridor.

She managed to roll with the throw, fetching up against the wall with enough force to wind herself again. For a moment she was too stunned to do much of anything but lie there and watch Barrazhat and Caedan go back to pummelling each other, but then she scrambled over onto her hands and knees and used the wall to pull herself upright. Her vision swam, the corridor seeming to shift and spin around her, but she didn’t fall. Instead, both hands on the wall, she braced herself and began staggering away from the two men. Her progress was painfully slow and as she pressed her face against the cool metal panels – anything to keep herself upright – she left a smear of blood behind her.

_“—status! Manka One, what –”_ Theron’s voice, more static than words, came through the buzzing in her comm. She opened her mouth to answer him but found it next to impossible to speak, the words jumbled before they could pass her lips.

There was an audible crack and a cry of pain behind her. Miranza didn’t turn to look. She focused on moving forward, away. She could still hear Theron pleading for a status update over the comms but the sound seemed strangely distant, as though she was listening to her comm underwater. She heard more high-pitched squealing through the comm, then, from close by, another pained sound. She turned, half-expecting to find Barrazhat and Caedan some distance away only to realize that she’d barely made it a foot past them, and Caedan was _right there._ He grabbed her by the throat, both hands encircling her neck, and she kicked out, heel of her boot connecting with his instep. He released her again, letting loose a string of curses she hadn’t realized the Jedi even knew, and before he could strike at her in retaliation she was raking the nails of one hand down his face, digging in as deeply as she could. From behind him Barrazhat was staggering to his feet and shaking his head like a stunned ronto.

An unseen wave of energy slammed into her, throwing her forward into the Pureblood and knocking them both to the ground. Her head cracked off Barrazhat’s breastplate and she saw stars. She didn’t get the chance to recover herself: a booted foot connected with her midsection and the next thing she knew there was vomit all down the front of Barrazhat’s armour and her chest was on fire. When Barrazhat shoved her away from himself – a look of disgust warring with the sheer rage on his face – she fell back against the wall just as Caedan lashed out again. This time his armoured boot caught her in the side of the head and Miranza’s world went dark.

The last thing she heard before unconsciousness claimed her was Rekka swearing in Mando’a over the comms, and then darkness rose up and swallowed her whole.

O o O o O

“Caedan? You in here?”

Flinching at the sound of Theron’s voice, Caedan tightened his arms around his knees and hugged them closer to his chest, trying desperately to make himself smaller. There was little point: the cargo hold aboard the _Mercurial_ was not particularly large and it was far too well-organized to provide much in the way of hiding places – and everyone knew he was already on the ship, that he hadn’t been left behind on the derelict Imperial Star Destroyer.

Much as Caedan might have wished otherwise.

He knew he was being childish, his behaviour unbecoming of a Jedi and the Commander of the Alliance. But if cramming himself between a couple of cargo crates and hiding from his allies was childish and un-Jedi-like, how much worse was what he had done on board the derelict ship? He had tried to murder Miranza and Barrazhat – had, in fact, come very close to succeeding – _would have_ succeeded if Rekka hadn’t managed to stun him with one of the electro-darts in her arm-launcher. Barrazhat, with his heavy Mandalorian armour, had gotten away with only minor cuts and bruises, but Miranza was very badly hurt. (That Caedan wasn’t the only one responsible for her injuries was a fact his mind kept skipping over in favour of digging into the guilt he felt at those injuries he _was_ responsible for.) He could have killed them both. He had _wanted_ to kill them both, Miranza especially. Barrazhat had just been a convenient target.

Caedan knocked his forehead against his knees, half-wishing he was still wearing his armour-plating so the action would hurt more. As it was he had a pretty impressive shiner and a series of deep nail-gouges in his cheek, both of which were aggravated by his face coming into contact with the rough fabric of his trousers. He couldn’t remember whether it was Miranza or Barrazhat who had blackened his eye for him, but Miranza had definitely been the one to rake her claws – fingernails, but the results were remarkably similar – down his face.

For once Valkorion was keeping his unwanted thoughts and opinions to himself. Caedan got the impression that the late Sith Emperor was as bothered by the mind-controlling and enhanced aggression effects of the gas as Caedan himself was, and under different circumstances the Jedi might have considered climbing atop the highest cliff he could find and screaming _“How do_ you _like it, you big Sith asshole?”_ but that seemed … rather less appropriate. To say that Caedan was still feeling a bit bitter and angry about the time he’d spent under Emperor Vitiate’s control would be putting things mildly. Unfortunately, given that Then-Vitiate/Now-Valkorion was dead – and given that Caedan had absolutely no intentions whatsoever of letting the Sith loose – it wasn’t likely he would learn from this particularly awful lesson. Still, Caedan was pathetically grateful for the silence. After the screaming, mindless rage he had experienced earlier, he was glad of the respite. His head felt crowded enough as it was.

“Hey.”

Caedan blinked as soft-shoed feet came into his field of view. He let his gaze travel upwards, from the shoes up over a pair of well-worn trousers to a ratty old T-shirt with the words _“Dance Like the Empire Isn’t Watching”_ emblazoned across the chest in faded Aurebesh, then finally up to Theron’s worried face. The former SIS agent had managed to escape the derelict ship relatively unscathed; Vector – who, like Barrazhat and Caedan had been overcome by the mind-control gas – had given him a split lip before Rekka had knocked him out. The Mandalorian woman was certainly quick-thinking and kriffing good in a crisis.

“Hey,” Caedan replied, the single syllable muffled into his knees. He lowered his gaze. He didn’t want to see the worried expression on Theron’s face.

Theron looked down at him for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Okay, so, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna sit with you” – he hesitated, eyeing up the small space Caedan had crammed himself into – “ah, assuming I can fit … and then maybe, in a little bit, you’ll let me take a look at those scratches. Okay?”

“I’m fine.” The various aches and pains clamouring for attention throughout Caedan’s body suggested otherwise, but he deserved those aches and pains.

A medkit dropped to the floor beside him as Theron huffed out a small, humourless laugh. “Yeah, not even close. Let’s try this again. Can I sit with you, Caedan?”

Caedan glared at him before lowering his gaze again, forcibly ignoring the warm flutter in his belly at the sound of his name from Theron’s lips. “Shouldn’t you be with Miranza in the medbay? Where I _put_ her?”

“Oh, we’re gonna do this now?” Without asking for Caedan’s permission again Theron lowered himself to the floor, squeezing his broad-shouldered frame in between one of the crates and Caedan’s equally muscular bulk. It was a tight fit, forcing Theron to press in close to Caedan in order to make room, but aside from the contact necessary for them both to fit Theron didn’t touch Caedan.

“Look,” Theron said, picking up the medkit and tucking it on his lap. He flipped the lid open and rummaged around, producing some antiseptic and bandages. “You were mind-controlled. Nobody’s blaming you – or Vector or Bazz – for what happened. You get that, right?”

_“Bazz?”_

Theron waggled one hand dismissively. “Barrazhat is too much of a mouthful – heh, _that’s what she said!_ – Bazz is just easier to say. More fun, too, if you think about it. Bazz. _Baaaaaazz._ See? Fun.”

He was trying too hard to be funny and good-natured, and it made Caedan all the more aware of why Theron might consider that necessary. Caedan didn’t have the energy to call him out on it, however. If he tried to point out that Theron was trying to deflect with humour, Theron would feel obligated to point out why it was needed, and none of this was a conversation Caedan wanted to have. He wanted to sit in the cargo hold and be miserable, and with any luck he’d brood long enough that his mind would reset itself and stop focusing on the other time he had been mind-controlled. Because at the end of the day, that was what was upsetting him. As horrible as it was to realize he had come frighteningly close to murdering a woman with his bare hands, it was far, far worse to suddenly find himself forced to remember all the other horrible things he had done while under Vitiate’s control. He had successfully avoided thinking about That Time for years now; he didn’t want to damage that streak.

“I just …” Caedan swallowed and tried again. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Theron.”

“’Kay.” Theron shrugged, shifting so that they were facing each other. “No talking. Here, let me patch you up. In silence.”

Caedan rolled his eyes, strongly doubting the other man’s ability to remain quiet for more than the time it would take to address Caedan’s wounds, but he did turn his head slightly to provide Theron access to the cuts on his cheek. Theron tutted – earning himself an arched eyebrow of reproof – but said nothing as he carefully cleaned the scratches Miranza’s fingernails had left down the side of Caedan’s face. The antiseptic stung, a strange cool-burning sensation, but then Theron applied some kolto gel and Caedan’s skin was instantly cooled.

“She’s going to be okay, right?” Caedan asked, breaking his own vow of silence.

Theron’s eyes – hazel darkened almost to brown in the dim lighting of the cargo hold – darted to his, and he nodded, jaw tightening. He was a good liar, Caedan knew that – the man _had_ been a spy, after all; of course he was good at lying and masking his emotions – but there was no hiding the fact that he was worried about his partner. Caedan had hurt Miranza, badly. He knew she was no longer in the medbay, but only because Rekka had concluded that the former Imperial agent would feel safer in her own bed in the captain’s quarters. Last he had seen, Vector was curled up with her, the Joiner’s lean body coiled protectively around hers. Vector’s own injuries were mild, just a bump on the head and some mild electrical burns from the shock Rekka had given him to take him out of the fight. Theron should be with them.

“She’s been through worse,” Theron said softly, eyes focused intently on the cuts he was treating.

“That … That doesn’t actually make this better,” Caedan replied, frowning. He looked down at his hands and then wished he hadn’t: his knuckles were bruised in spite of the armoured gloves he had worn, and he could see bite marks on his forearm. He let out a helpless, humourless chuckle and scrubbed one hand over his face, on the side opposite to where Theron was trying to work. Theron made a small sound of disapproval as his efforts were temporarily disrupted, his hands hovering over the deep gouges down Caedan’s cheek.

“What’s so funny?” Theron asked, resuming his painstaking treatment of Caedan’s injuries.

Caedan huffed out another laugh, then took the plunge: “I know Jedi are shit at relationships, but this pattern I seem to have? Where I keep fucking things up for Miranza? Probably not the best way for me to let a guy know I like him. ‘Hey, Theron, I think you’re hot. Let me just throw your girlfriend in jail!’ ‘Hey, Theron, I’d like to take you out sometime, oh and by the way, I’m kicking your girlfriend off the planet.’ Smooth. This is why Jedi don’t get laid.”

Startled – whether by Caedan’s outburst or by his admissions, Caedan couldn’t decide, although he could concede that his swearing had probably taken the other man off-guard – Theron pulled back, blinking rapidly. He leaned back a bit, setting the blood- and kolto-stained wipes on the ground before giving Caedan a long, measuring look.

“In my experience,” Theron said carefully, “that’s not the reason Jedi don’t get laid.” His mouth quirked, lips lifting in a faint approximation of a smile. “It’s been a while since my living-in-a-cave days, but I vaguely recall something about attachments? Something something no attachments, something something Dark Side, something something trust in the Force?”

This time when Caedan laughed it was genuine, the sound surprised out of him. “Yeah, that’s not quite how that rule went …”

Theron snorted. “Yeah, most of the Jedi I’ve known have been a little vague on the concept themselves.”

Caedan remembered belatedly that Theron’s mother was a Jedi – not just any Jedi, but Satele Shan, former Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. It was one of those open secrets within the Jedi Order (and on Odessen, where rumours flowed fast and furious, especially about the various leaders and advisors of the Alliance). Everyone sort of knew about it, but no one ever really _talked_ about it. Theron’s life experiences provided him with an insight into the Jedi that few outsiders could ever hope to match. He was both of and outside the Order.

“Look,” Theron began, letting out another heavy sigh as he bumped his knee against Caedan’s thigh, “I know it’s been difficult. Miranza is … The circumstances … Well, it’s difficult. It’s complicated. I don’t hold it against you. It doesn’t …” He ducked his head, ears turning red as he added, “It doesn’t make me like you any less.”

“Oh.” Caedan’s own cheeks flared in response. “Um, okay. Good.”

After a few seconds of embarrassed silence Theron resumed cleaning and bandaging Caedan’s wounds. His injuries were largely superficial – most of the damage had been to his psyche, and Theron didn’t have the means to heal that. The silence between them became more companionable and less fraught, Theron working quietly to swab Caedan’s various cuts with antiseptic wipe and then smear on kolto gel where necessary before wrapping the whole mess up in gauze and tape. He was quick, efficient, his movements sure and calm. Caedan had the sense that Theron was thinking something over, and let the other man work in peace, grateful that for whatever reason Valkorion still chose to keep his opinions to himself.

Theron had moved on to bandaging Caedan’s knuckles – something that caused Caedan to stiffen up again, because out of everything these injuries were the most damning – before speaking again. When he did, his voice was quiet, with a deliberately casual note in it that didn’t fool Caedan for a second.

“How much do you know about me?” he asked. “Specifically, about my disappearance about eight years back?”

Caedan shook his head. What he knew about Theron could fit on the head of a pin. “Not much. I’ve seen your SIS file, but it’s … pretty heavily redacted.”

Theron smirked. “Yeah, most operatives’ files are like that. Can’t have you good folks of the Republic knowing about all the underhanded sneaky shit us spies get up to in the name of truth, justice and Senate security.”

Snorting, Caedan nodded, then gestured one-handed for Theron to continue. Theron drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders, giving Caedan the impression he was bracing for something.

“Yeah. So … about eight years ago I was kidnapped by some nutjobs who wanted to use me for … Well.” Theron shook his head as if shaking the memories loose. “It doesn’t matter what they wanted me for or why. What matters is, they took me. They … ah … They tortured me. Brainwashed me. Made me …” His breath caught and he had to pause, swallowing. Caedan waited, patient but curious, and after a few seconds Theron continued, “They made me do things. Horrible things. After about … shit, I don’t even remember how long I was there before Miranza showed up.”

“Miranza?”

“Yeah.” Theron’s voice was soft and full of emotion. His eyes shimmered and he wiped the back of his hand over them, smearing away unshed tears. “Yeah, Miranza. She came after me. And Vector and some others. Lana too, actually. It was a joint effort.”

Caedan blinked, wondering what in the galaxy had propelled a trio of Imperial agents to come after a kidnapped SIS operative. Theron just shrugged and went back to bandaging Caedan’s knuckles.

“Miranza was taken, like me,” Theron said carefully. “Our captors tried to use the same brainwashing techniques on her but it failed. I can’t … I can’t really go into why or how, just … it had been done to her before, she fixed herself, and it didn’t work again. _Couldn’t_ work again. Anyway …” Another deep, steadying breath. “I was made to hurt her. One of our … one of the people who took us was a real sick fuck. He liked … He liked hurting us, watching us hurt each other. He did … He made us …”

“It’s okay.” Caedan spoke quickly, before Theron could continue. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Theron brushed at his eyes again, blinking hard and fast. He nodded, voice shaky as he said, “Yeah, I’ll spare you the details. Just … it’s enough that you know that I get it, okay? What you did, back on the Star Destroyer? That wasn’t you, just like the things I was made to do to … to Miranza … that wasn’t me. We’re not those people. We were just … Look, you don’t blame a blaster pistol when someone is killed, you blame the person who pulled the trigger. You, back there on the ship? You were the pistol, not the hand on the trigger. You’re not at fault here, Caedan.”

Intellectually Caedan knew that already. He knew that their team had been exposed to some kind of brainwashing gas that had increased their aggressiveness and lowered their inhibitions. He knew that he wasn’t the sort of person who could just go off and nearly beat a woman – beat _anyone_ – to death with his bare hands. He knew that. But the feelings had been real at the time. The rage he had felt, that had been directed primarily at Miranza, that had been real. He had gone after her, specifically, because deep down inside there was a part of him that saw her as a threat to Theron and to his own budding relationship with the man. Barrazhat had just been there, wrong place, wrong time, and Caedan had simply needed to go through the bounty hunter in order to get to his real target. And the knowledge that he was capable of such a thing – that he could wreak such violence with his own two hands – sickened him. He didn’t want to be that person, and it threw him back to when he had been under Vitiate’s control, to when he had been made to _be_ that person and what it had felt like to be so entangled within the Dark Side.

“How much do you know about the year I was missing?” Caedan asked, heart thudding dully in his chest. He hadn’t talked about this, not with anyone. He didn’t want to talk about this, but Theron had shared his experiences with this sort of loss of control, and Caedan needed him to know that he understood.

“Not much.” Theron taped off the last of the bandaging, eyes fixed on his work. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Your file’s pretty heavily redacted, too.”

Caedan ducked his head, savouring the sudden flare of warmth in his gut at the knowledge that Theron had done his research. Not that it had to mean anything – Theron was a spy, after all, and it only made sense that he would have done his intelligence-gathering before getting involved in the efforts to rescue Caedan. Still, it mattered to him that Theron had read up on him.

“Yeah,” Caedan said quietly, consciously echoing Theron’s earlier comments, “Most Jedi’s files are like that. Can’t have you sneaky spies in the SIS knowing all the good, pure, Light Side-y stuff us Jedi get up to in the name of truth, justice and Republic security.”

He sobered, fingers tapping restlessly over his knee. He didn’t want to talk about this, had in fact made a fairly good job of _not_ talking about it, ever, to anyone. Stars, he’d managed to go over a decade without discussing more than the bare bones facts about what had happened to him. The presence in the back of his mind shifted restlessly, a warning that Valkorion was beginning to take an interest in the conversation at hand. Caedan willed the other man to stay away and keep out of this, and for the time being Valkorion complied. Caedan knew he would pay for it later, but for now he was grateful. This discussion would be painful enough without Valkorion’s arrogant input.

“There was a failed operation,” Caedan said, speaking slowly, weighing his words with great care. He only wanted to discuss this once; he had to make sure Theron understood. “We were going after the Sith Emperor – Vitiate, then. There were plans …” He shook his head. The plans didn’t matter. The plans had failed. “It didn’t work, and we were captured. All of us: me, my crew, the other Jedi we were with. We – the Jedi, I mean – we were all brainwashed, forced into serving Vitiate. I’m not sure how long we were there, how long we … how long I served the Sith Emperor, but …”

Caedan shrugged, discomfort growing. In the back of his mind Valkorion was sending out waves of smug satisfaction, delight at having captured such prizes. _I broke your control, motherfucker,_ Caedan thought back at him, pushing back with savage glee as Valkorion retreated again.

“I got away,” Caedan finished, voice barely above a whisper. “Afterwards I said I didn’t remember what had happened – what I’d done, working for Vitiate.”

“But you do,” Theron supplied, sounding both utterly unsurprised and completely sympathetic.

“Yeah. I do.” Caedan picked at the bandage over his left knuckles, smoothing down a piece of surgical tape. When he looked up Theron was watching him, sympathy and understanding shining through his eyes. “I remember everything. That, back on the ship? With Miranza?” Theron nodded. “That was nothing compared to what Vitiate made me do. It just … It just reminded me.”

Theron looked away, giving Caedan time to compose himself while he packed up the medical supplies and tucked them all back in the medkit. After a few minutes of silence he spoke without looking at the Jedi: “Did you ever tell anyone about what happened? Did you talk to anyone?”

Caedan sucked in a breath around the sudden ache in his chest and shook his head. “There wasn’t time. I got out and … the Council threw me back in. There was too much to do.”

Theron’s fists tightened until his knuckles were white and he shook his head, muttering something under his breath that Caedan couldn’t catch. When Caedan shot him a quizzical look he shook his head again, gracing him with an apologetic smile.

“I don’t know why that should surprise me,” the former SIS operative said, still quiet and low. At Caedan’s still-obvious puzzlement he continued, “Of course the organization that turfed me at thirteen would be the same organization that would throw a traumatized veteran back into battle. Of _course.”_

“They … wait, _what?”_

Theron waved him off. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.” It _was_ important, but Caedan didn’t know how to pry, and was mostly just grateful that he didn’t need to explain his own situation better – that Theron seemed to understand, without having all the details spelled out for him. Instead of pressing the point Caedan set it aside to be looked at at another time.

Instead of going into details, Theron pushed the medkit up onto the nearby crate before turning to face Caedan directly, his expression earnest.

“After I got away,” Theron said, careful again, “once I was back on Coruscant the SIS made me get counselling. Mandatory therapy sessions, three times a week at first, and then less frequently after that. It wasn’t … I mean, I didn’t like it and I’m not sure how much it helped, but … it was something. Fell out of the habit after …” He gestured vaguely, and Caedan took it to mean all the events that had befallen them as a result of Arcann’s attack, Darth Marr’s death, and everything on Zakuul. Caedan could appreciate how chaotic the past seven years had been, even if he’d only been conscious for a little over a year himself. He could understand how Theron might have let his mental health slide, how his therapy sessions might have been one of the first things to get overlooked in the wake of everything else that needed to be dealt with _right away_.

“What I’m saying,” Theron went on, staring down at his hands with concentrated effort, “is if you need someone to talk to – and you _should_ talk to someone, after everything that’s happened to you – I’m here to listen. And I know you’re blaming yourself for what happened with Miranza and Bazz, but it’s honestly not your fault and nobody – _nobody on this ship,_ Caedan – is going to hold it against you.” He let out a helpless little laugh, sounding somewhat surprised. “Stars, if you’re looking for folks who’ll understand you, you’re in the right kriffing place. Me, Miranza, Vector: trust me, Caedan, the three of us know a thing or two about mind control.”

He sobered again and met Caedan’s eyes before carefully reaching out to take one of the Jedi’s hands in both of his own. Theron licked his lips, suddenly looking nervous. Then, with deliberate care, he continued, “As for you and me … um … yeah, we’re still good. I still … um … Yeah, I’m still into you.”

“Oh.” Caedan blinked a few times, unable to tear his gaze away from Theron’s lips and the faint sheen of moisture over them and the tip of a pink tongue poking out. “You are? Oh, you are. Um. Okay. Yeah. Good.” _Smooth, Caedan,_ he thought, deliberately slamming a metaphorical door in Valkorion’s face before the Sith ghost could pop up with his usual uninvited commentary. _Real smooth._ Man, he was out of practice with this stuff, wasn’t he? Five years of carbonite-enforced celibacy really put a dent in a man’s seduction skills.

Theron reached out one hand – it was shaking, ever so slightly – and cupped Caedan’s jawline. His hand was rough, calluses on his palm and fingertips, but the thumb that stroked Caedan’s chin was gentle, and the look in his eyes was … oh, it was something else entirely, and Caedan’s heart skipped a few beats in his chest.

“I’d like to kiss you now,” Theron said softly, leaning forward. “That okay with you?”

“Um,” Caedan said cleverly, the propensity for Basic speech wiped completely from his brain at even the thought of Theron kissing him. When all Theron did was hold his face and stare at him intently Caedan finally remembered how words worked – or at least, he remembered the sound of one word, and it was the one that mattered here: “Yes.”

Theron’s lips were chapped. That was the first thing Caedan noticed when the agent brought their mouths together. The second was that they were warm and wet, and he tasted like caf and kolto. The third thing Caedan noticed was that it had been a long damned time since someone had kissed him, and before he knew it he was twining his arms around Theron’s back and drawing him in close.

It was, for all Caedan’s longing, a remarkably chaste kiss. No slip of the tongue, no groping, no grinding. But it was _good_ and it lasted a good long while, and when they both pulled back Caedan was breathing heavily. The cut on Theron’s lip had reopened; Caedan tasted blood, licked it away with the tip of his tongue – and took heart in the way Theron’s eyes lingered on his mouth.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Caedan asked, gesturing toward Theron’s split lip.

Theron touched the tip of one finger to the cut, shrugging slightly. “Nah, it’s fine. That was … That was good. Better than good. Great. We should … yeah, we should do that again. More of that.”

“More of that would be great,” Caedan agreed. A voice in the back of his head – his former mentor, Master Orgus Din, rather than Valkorion for a change – cautioned him against attachments. It was, frankly, advice that Caedan had never been particularly interested in taking. In most other respects he knew he was an exemplary Jedi; he thought, maybe, he could have this _one_ thing. He’d given everything else to saving the galaxy, couldn’t he just have this _one small thing_ to make him happy?

Theron grinned, fierce and sudden, and pushed himself to his feet. For a moment he just stood there, smiling down at Caedan – and damned if that smile didn’t warm Caedan all the way through – before his expression sobered again. His hazel eyes didn’t lose their warmth, however, and the smile he turned on Caedan was gentle and compassionate.

“I meant it, what I said about the rest of us understanding,” he said, and the sincerity in his voice made Caedan want to cry. He held out one hand, helping pull Caedan to his feet. “The three of us, we’re kind of shit at talking ourselves, but we’re all damned good listeners.”

Caedan chewed on his lower lip, suddenly reminded of the fact that Miranza and Vector weren’t just Theron’s friends and teammates, they were his partners. His _lovers._

“They aren’t … um … They’re not gonna mind about … this?” Caedan gestured between himself and Theron, his cheeks flushing again. It made the old lightsaber scar across his face – courtesy of the dead man in his head – burn, but he ignored it in favour of meeting Theron’s warm hazel eyes.

Theron laughed, his own cheeks going a little pink. He ran one hand through his hair, sending dark brown spikes sticking out all over the place. “Honestly? I think they were about two seconds away from tying us both up and dumping us on an island somewhere. Naked.”

“With a crate of Corellian whiskey?”

Caedan almost missed the uneasy flicker that came and went from Theron’s face, but he caught it and immediately regretted whatever he’d said to make the other man uncomfortable. Did Theron not drink? Did Theron think that because Caedan was a Jedi, _he_ didn’t drink? Caedan opened his mouth to apologize, but Theron quickly spoke over him, his words making Caedan’s blush increase about a thousand-fold.

“More like a crate of lube and synthskins, knowing them. But, uh, yeah. Something like that.” Theron scratched at his chin, looking pleasantly embarrassed. “They’re kind of … direct, when they want to be. I think they’re getting tired of the two of us dancing around each other.”

“Oh. Well.” Caedan sidled in close, doing his best to remember how to smolder. He used to be good at that, _smoldering._ It was a thing he had done. (The teasing laughter in the back of his mind was most definitely Kira’s. He ignored her with ease.) Slipping one arm around Theron’s waist he leaned in and planted a soft kiss against the underside of the other man’s jaw, where the stubble scratched his lips. “We don’t want to disappoint them, then, do we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from the song "Operation: Mindcrime" by Queensrÿche, which seemed thematically appropriate.
> 
> You may have noticed the distinct lack of smut in this chapter. Oh, man, this kriffing chapter ... I currently have five different versions of Chapter 51 saved, all with different themes and ideas, and I honestly kind of hate them all at this point, although one version can be repurposed for a later chapter. (I never completely delete anything, just move it to a separate folder for future use.) I wanted to write smut but it just wasn't working out, so instead I decided to finally make Theron and Caedan talk to each other. And make out a teensy-tiny bit. Finally.
> 
> One of the things that has always bothered me about SWTOR is the fact that some truly awful, traumatic stuff happens to your character during the course of the narrative, but it's never really _dealt_ with. And I understand that it probably doesn't make sense mechanically to spend a chapter or so addressing your character's trauma, but from a psychological point of view people don't generally just get up from being tortured and run back into the fight, nor do they spend an unknown number of months as a slave of the Emperor without it having some kind of impact. While I'm not expecting the Imperial Agent's storyline to include her getting counselling from the Minders, or for the Jedi Knight and Satele Shan to sit down and talk about how working for the Emperor made him _feel_ , it would have been nice to have some acknowledgement that those events were traumatic for your characters. So yeah, Caedan is still dealing with crap, because mechanically speaking the storyline saw him break free of the Emperor's control and then immediately throw himself back into the fight - and that fucks a person up. So now Theron and Caedan can bond over trauma, because I likes me my angst. :D
> 
> A note about the date: Yeah, so, rereading my stuff I realized that I never really changed the date to adjust for the fact that Miranza was with Darth Occlus for a year. The timeline there is kind of deliberately vague, so just ... kindly overlook this author-being-an-idiot oversight. This latest chapter takes place a short while (again, deliberately vague) after the last one.
> 
> Oh, and you can thank Cinlat for "Bazz." She came up with that particular nickname. I don't know how _he_ feels about it yet. ;)


	52. Wicked Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spies meet up with a contact and are given a new assignment. It proves more difficult than Theron was expecting.

_**Port Nowhere, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

One of the best parts about being a spy, in Miranza’s opinion, was the many opportunities it presented for playing dress-up. Her training in Intelligence – which had begun much, much earlier than was standard procedure – had included education in fashion, hairstyling, makeup and camouflage, and she had learned how best to style her own body (and others’ bodies as well) both to stand out and to blend in. One of the earliest games she could remember taking part in had involved a wardrobe filled with costumes and a box of makeup, and it had been one of the few games she had actually enjoyed. (Most of her childhood games had revolved around learning how to manipulate and murder; those had been less fun. She and Theron had a running competition over who had the most messed-up childhood. She was in the lead, but not by much. At least _she_ hadn’t grown up in a cave.) The point was, Miranza loved any excuse for costumes – and any excuse to get Theron or Vector to play dress-up along with her was even better.

Meeting with their contact on Port Nowhere was as good an excuse as any, given that two Imperial agents and one Republic spy would attract a bit of attention; regrettably for Miranza’s sensibilities, however, the pirate station wasn’t the sort of place suited to tuxedos and ballgowns. Instead, the three of them were dressed as spacers – a look not unlike their usual attire, albeit a bit more rough around the edges. Both Theron and Vector were sporting several days’ worth of stubble (Miranza thought the resulting beard-burn was worth it for how deliciously disreputable it made them both appear), Vector’s facial hair having grown long enough that he had begun shaping it into a small circle beard that Miranza was not-so-secretly appreciating. Theron had somehow managed to get his short brown hair into cornrows, a look Miranza wasn’t entirely sold on but it did something to change the shape of his face that was particularly useful for covert work. Vector’s normally slicked-back hair hung soft and loose around his face; he had to keep pushing strands back behind his ears. Miranza had used a cheap temporary dye to colour her own pale blonde hair red (strangely enough, the mix of near-platinum – it still hadn’t come in fully dark blonde yet – and red dye had resulted in an almost pinkish colour that she definitely didn’t care for, but it served its purpose). With a visor over Vector’s all-black eyes and elaborate “tattoo” work around Theron’s implants, the three of them managed to look nothing at all like themselves and every bit the disreputable spacers they were supposed to be.

Their contact was a young – well, perhaps not so young anymore – Twi’lek woman Miranza and Vector knew through Miranza’s old masseuse on Dromund Kaas. They had long fallen out of contact with Ki’ala, the woman who had been providing Miranza with therapeutic massages following the torture she had experienced on Alderaan years ago, but they had assisted her two sisters in escaping slavery and as a result the Twi’leks felt they owed the two Imperials. There had been nothing they could do for Ki’ala – her owner had been too entrenched in Imperial society and at the time they hadn’t been in a position to interfere – but she had been grateful and relieved for her sisters to get away. The youngest sister was off somewhere on Corellia, married to the Zabrak woman who had helped to fix Theron’s implants after the slicer trap on Zakuul. The middle sister had joined a group of freedom fighters whose main purpose was in freeing slaves from Hutt and Imperial control, and as a result of her work she had come across some potential intelligence about a certain Nautolan woman that Miranza, Theron and Vector very much wanted dead and out of the picture. Sil’aya, the middle sister, had agreed to meet up with them on Port Nowhere to make the exchange; between Zakuul and the enemies she had made since becoming a free woman, she didn’t trust the information to non-secure channels. Miranza could appreciate that kind of mentality.

The open cantina area in the middle of Port Nowhere was rowdy and crowded. A Quenk jazz band had the stage, playing something fast and upbeat that had a number of people up and dancing. All the tables and chairs were full, some folks gathered close together trying to make conversation over the music, others sitting back to enjoy the show or to people-watch. There was an overall air of festivity aboard the space station that seemed oddly out of place given that the galaxy was at war, but Miranza knew from previous experiences aboard Port Nowhere that the joviality always had a natural edge of desperation to it, the result of dangerous people gathered together in a frantic bid to enjoy what little time they might have left before the galaxy exploded.

Miranza had never met Sil’aya before, having only spoken to her through coded messages and short radio communications, and as a result she found herself staring at every Twi’lek, wondering if this was her contact. It wasn’t until a slight, blue-skinned woman with elaborately tattooed lekku sank into a chair opposite her that Miranza recognized the strong resemblance to Ki’ala.

“Sil’aya, I presume?” Miranza said, arching one blonde eyebrow.

The Twi’lek nodded, pale lavender eyes scanning rapidly over the three of them before finally settling on Miranza. Her movements reminded Miranza of a bird: rapid, flighty, as if she found it difficult to keep still.

“You have information for us?” Theron prompted. Miranza kept finding her eyes drawn to the painted lines on his face, a vaguely tribal pattern that effectively disguised his cranial implants. Kaliyo had done the work in shades of grey, with small splashes of red and yellow to mimic the lights in his ports. She had done an excellent job: you had to look closely to notice the implants at all, despite how eye-catching the “tattoo” itself was. “On Amrielle?”

“I do.” Sil’aya sat back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. She was smaller than Miranza remembered her sister being, less curvaceous and more slight; Miranza suspected Sil’aya’s build owed more to growing up poor and malnourished than to aesthetics. She had seen it before in former slaves: fed enough to keep her alive and capable of working, but not enough to flourish. Healthy slaves rebelled, after all. Sick, underfed slaves were too weak to disobey. “A woman matching her description was involved in a slaving ring in the Outer Rim. We took the ring down, but she got away.”

“That’s not much to go on,” Theron said, frowning. Beside him Vector shifted, masking his disappointment behind taking a sip of his watered-down whiskey.

“I didn’t finish,” Sil’aya said, with the firmness of a woman who had grown accustomed to men interrupting her but who had learned to start speaking up in response. She fixed Theron with a hard look, the fingers of one hand tapping a steady tattoo on the opposite bicep. “She got away, but my people were able to track her and have been keeping tabs on her. We were going to take her down ourselves – she _is_ a slaver – but I remembered you were looking for a Nautolan woman fitting her description.” She smiled, baring her teeth, and it was a surprisingly vicious expression. “From what you’ve told me, I thought you might want the pleasure of dealing with her yourselves.”

“Yes,” Vector said. His voice was quiet, but he made himself heard over the jazz band and the crowd. There was a note of savage satisfaction in his voice. “We do.”

“Fantastic.” Sil’aya’s smile grew broader. “I’ll happily trade the intel for services.” Before anyone could comment she continued, “There’s a small slaving operation based out of the Nikto sector on Nar Shaddaa. My people have shut it down a few times but they keep popping up. You’re going to take them out for me, and then I’ll give you the information I have on your Nautolan problem.”

Miranza exchanged glances with Theron and Vector. This hadn’t been part of the discussion she’d had with Sil’aya prior to meeting the Twi’lek on Port Nowhere. In fact, she had very much been under the impression that Sil’aya was providing the intel on Amrielle as a means of repaying the debt she felt she and her sister owed for their freedom. Sil’aya saw the silent communication going on between the three of them and bristled, sitting up straight in her chair to glare at them.

“This is my price,” she said in ringing, strident tones. “These are bad people and they need to be brought down. They’re keeping children in cages and selling them in packs of ten and twenty. We’ve tried taking them out, again and again and again, but they keep coming back like … like …”

“Hey,” Theron said, giving her a small, hard smile, “You had us at _‘slaves.’”_

O o O o O

Plan C saw Miranza in the slave girl costume. Again.

The thing was, the whole “pose as a slave trader and their stock” idea worked, nine times out of ten. Miranza and Vector had used it successfully, Theron had used it successfully, it was a tried and true method of getting past security. It provided a convenient excuse for getting inside a slaving operation’s top-secret headquarters, and even explained why you would come with armed guards (you had to protect your investments, after all), even if decent security always frisked you before letting you in to the inner sanctum. If you could pull off the whole “sleazy slave trading asshole” routine you could waltz into HQ and get the job done before the bad guys had any clue anything was wrong.

Plan A had involved Theron and Miranza as the slaves, and Vector as the trader. The moment the collar came out, however, Theron had started hyperventilating. It was horribly embarrassing. The kriffing collar wasn’t even _real_ and it was nothing like either of the ones Amrielle or Darth Jadzira had stuck on him, and yet just the sight of it – and the knowledge that he would be expected to _wear it_ – was enough to send him into a full-blown panic attack. He couldn’t even _touch_ the fucking thing. So Plan A was scrapped.

Plan B had swapped Theron and Vector, but it had quickly become obvious that Theron was no more comfortable in the role of slave trader than he had been as slave. It wasn’t quite as bad – he didn’t hyperventilate to the point of passing out, at least – but it was still … bad. Embarrassingly so. Not that Vector or Miranza did or said anything to contribute to Theron’s embarrassment; instead, they were incredibly supportive, as always. No, Theron’s brain did the job all on its own, pointing out how useless he would be to their operation if he couldn’t calm himself down enough to get the job done. There was no help for it, however: there was no way Theron could convincingly portray a slave trader, not when the mere idea of having ownership over Vector or Miranza was enough to make his palms sweat and his vision blur. It was something they would need to work on, once all this was over – they couldn’t afford these kinds of weaknesses, they needed to maintain mission flexibility – but for the time being Plan B was scrapped, too.

So, Plan C: Miranza in the slave collar, Vector as the trader, and Theron as surly bodyguard, a role sufficiently distanced from the slave/owner dynamic that he could function. He was still embarrassed, but that was something they could address later on, post-op.

Three humans – Vector was suppressing the pheromonic bond between himself and the Killik hive, so even he passed for human for this op – stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of the Nikto sector on Nar Shaddaa, especially three humans who were obviously not members of any of the local gangs. Vector was dressed to the nines as a proper businessman (albeit a tacky, sleazy businessman whose wares were sentient lifeforms), Miranza wore as little as possible (but it was the collar Theron’s eyes kept getting dragged towards) and Theron wore leatheris armour in his guise as a bodyguard. Vector looked slimy, Miranza looked humbled, and Theron was having no trouble at all looking dangerous. Better to look and feel dangerously on-edge than insecure and humiliated, after all.

Sil’aya’s crew had been able to provide most of the intel they needed for this operation: location, numbers, a basic rundown of what the inside of the headquarters would look like. A week of discreet surveillance had provided the rest, garnering them insight into patrol schedules, security systems and a general gist of heavy traffic times. To be honest Theron wasn’t entirely certain why Sil’aya and her people couldn’t just hit the slavers themselves; it seemed like they had more than enough information to go on, and from what Miranza had gleaned about Sil’aya’s crew they were certainly more than capable and had performed similar operations on their own before. Vector theorized that Sil’aya was simply uncomfortable with the idea of giving information away for free. The intel she had on Amrielle was the only card she had and Vector and Miranza had made it very clear to Ki’ala and her siblings that there was no debt between them for their assistance in getting the Twi’lek sisters out of Imperial space. If Sil’aya wanted to keep things balanced between them she needed Theron and the others to do something in exchange for the intel, and getting them to hit a slaving operation – something the three of them were highly inclined towards doing, anyway – was a means of balancing the scales. If it weren’t for the whole slave-collars-causing-panic thing, Theron probably would have been having fun.

Headquarter security was very thorough in their frisking – unsurprisingly, they were even more thorough with Miranza, necessitating an indifferent “Hands off the goods unless you’re planning to buy” from Vector – and caught most of the weapons Theron had hidden on himself. They missed the holdout blaster between his shoulder blades but only because Miranza distracted them with some over-the-top squealing and wriggling. They searched Vector’s briefcase with bored disinterest, far more concerned about Miranza’s curves than the carefully-hidden explosive charges disguised as product samples within. (In addition to selling people it was decided that Vector should also pose as a spice dealer, which enabled him to smuggle in vials of chemicals. Some of which, when properly mixed, became incredibly flammable. They had Kaliyo to thank for _that,_ too, in addition to Theron’s lovely facial artwork.)

Theron had been expecting to be led inside some sort of private club area, and had been bracing himself for loud music, too many people, and the mingled odours of spice, booze and too many bodies pressed too close together. Instead he, Vector and Miranza were escorted into what looked like a mechanic’s repair shop, with a counter against the back wall and doors leading left and right. The right-hand door appeared to have a relatively simple locking mechanism, just a scanner for a keycard – presumably one or all of the guards carried keys – but the left-hand one was more complex, this one with a biometric lock and an ocular scanner. Theron suspected that the majority of the high-ticket slaves – in other words, the children Sil’aya had spoken of – were hidden somewhere beyond that portal. A dull-eyed Nikto stood behind the counter, eyeing the three of them with great suspicion, his hands reaching for something at waist height that Theron strongly suspected was a blaster rifle or pistol. Their escort directed them to turn right, and once the man – another Nikto, heavily scarred and with wandering hands that kept pinching Miranza’s bottom (earning him another “Hands off the goods, please, _sir”_ from Vector, his bored indifference growing increasingly strained) – swept a keycard across a scanner he opened the door and led them inside a small, cluttered office.

Behind the desk sat yet another Nikto, this one larger and more opulently dressed than his comrades. Theron knew without needing to be introduced that this was Dul Sonn, the man in charge of this particular slaving operation – and their target. Behind Sonn were two rather massive Gamorreans, both with rifles slung over their shoulders and blaster pistols at their hips; Theron didn’t doubt for a second that they had other weapons hidden elsewhere on their person.

Dul Sonn raised one scaled eyebrow ridge, cocking his head in curiosity. His black eyes were zeroed in on Miranza, scanning her from top to bottom and then back again, lingering on her hips and breasts. The flimsy, filmy fabric she wore left little to the imagination and was just opaque enough to disguise the scars on her abdomen. The serpentine markings Darth Occlus had given her had long since faded, but the scars she had acquired during her tenure in the Sith lord’s service were stark and ugly, and while they didn’t bother Miranza – or her partners, save for the pain they represented – it was unlikely that slavers would find them desirable in a potential purchase. Whip marks, such as Vector sported on his back, or chafing from an old collar: those sorts of markings would be acceptable, would suggest a slave with spirit. But evidence of a gut wound – one that should have been fatal – would raise too many questions. Hence Miranza had covered her scars with makeup and carefully positioned clothing, draped to reveal only the attributes she wanted the slavers to see.

“What have we here?” the Nikto said, leering at Miranza. His gaze drifted to Vector, then briefly to Theron, dismissing them both as being of less interest.

Vector yawned, leaning one hip against the desk. His eyes – a hazel slightly more green than Theron’s own – were glazed, and while it contributed greatly to his persona of a spice-dealer (one who had apparently been sampling his own goods) Theron knew it came from the strain of suppressing his bond to the Killiks. Vector could maintain the suppression for longer and longer periods of time nowadays, but he would come out of this with a splitting headache and to go too long could be risky. Joiners who were separated from the Killik connection went mad and died; they could only maintain this ruse for so long before it became dangerous for Vector.

“A troublesome and ill-thought purchase,” the Joiner said, affecting nonchalance. “Acquired in Imperial space. I would have thought her previous owners would have trained all the mischief out of her but it seems I was mistaken.” He rolled his eyes and pinned Dul Sonn with a look, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards. “I’ve been told your … _organization_ … has a talent for dealing with troublesome slaves. I’d like to unload her, perhaps in exchange for some that are more … _docile.”_

The look Miranza shot him was venomous and indignant, strong enough that it took an act of will for Theron not to quail in front of her and it wasn’t even directed at him. Vector, however, simply smirked and looked away, attention returning to the Nikto. Theron caught the faint twitch at Miranza’s lips and knew she was trying - successfully, thank the Force - not to laugh. The whole setup was ludicrous.

“You see?” Vector said, gesturing vaguely at her. “Pretty enough –”

“Fantastic tits,” said one of the Gamorrean guards. Theron successfully resisted the urge to blow his cover by throttling the man.

“Yes, quite,” Vector conceded, grimacing slightly as though annoyed more by the interruption than by the nature of the comment. “I simply don’t have the time for proper training. That’s not how I operate my business. But you …” He focused on Dul Sonn, offering up a smile that was distinctly slimy and extremely uncharacteristic of Vector. “Your reputation precedes you.”

The Nikto looked Miranza over again, thinking. After a moment he smiled, a slow, broad smile that made Theron’s stomach turn, and he said, “Let me sample the goods first and then I’ll make you an offer.”

“Of course.” Vector yawned again, gaze flicking to the two Gamorreans. “Will your … friends … be joining you?”

Dul Sonn glanced at the two guards. One of the Gamorreans stood up a little straighter, grinning from ear to ear – that was the one who had commented on Miranza’s breasts. His expression suggested that if his boss was in, he was in. The other shrugged and shook his head, giving Theron a meaningful once-over.

“How much for your grunt?” the Gamorrean asked. Theron repressed a shudder.

“Sadly he’s not for sale,” Vector replied smoothly, somehow managing to sound genuinely disappointed that he couldn’t offer Theron up on a platter. “Exclusive contract. You know how it is.” Theron let out a small sigh of relief, grateful that he wasn’t going to have to feign sexual interest in anyone. Miranza had agreed to it – it was the fastest and simplest way to separate the Nikto from the rest of his goons, and promised to gain them access to the back room where the slaves were likely being kept – but a look from her would be all it would take for Theron to acquiesce to the Gamorrean’s request. If she didn’t think she could handle Dul Sonn and his guard on her own … Theron just didn’t know how he would react when and if the other man put his hands on him.

But there was no look from Miranza, no indication whatsoever from her that she didn’t think she could handle the two men on her own. Theron wasn’t surprised – he knew her skills and limitations almost as well as she did – but he _was_ relieved. And guilty. His partners shouldn’t have to put themselves on the line just because Theron’s brain was a twisted bag of snakes.

Dul Sonn chuckled at his guard’s disappointed expression – at least Theron thought the Gamorrean looked disappointed at being told Theron wasn’t for sale; he found Gamorreans difficult to read, and this one might simply have been constipated. Or thinking really hard. Or not at all. The big Nikto reached out and wrapped one massive paw around Miranza’s wrist, yanking her towards him with a non-too-gentle tug that had her stumbling into him. He chuckled again, this time at Miranza’s unbalancing, and Theron saw a flicker of annoyance in Miranza’s eyes before she deftly covered it up with trembling nervousness. Vector gave an imperious gesture in Theron’s direction and they left the room, the other Gamorrean trailing at their heels.

Back out in the entrance area the Gamorrean closed the door behind them with an air of finality and leaned up against it, arms crossed over his broad chest. The Nikto behind the counter eyeballed Theron and Vector but kept his mouth shut, no doubt accustomed to his boss’s predilections.

“What’s beyond there?” Vector asked, pointing at the door opposite the office they had just exited. His interest was only partly feigned: they needed to buy Miranza time to operate, but it also couldn’t hurt to have some idea of what else they might find within the slaving ring’s headquarters.

The Nikto grunted, jerking one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “’Nother office.”

“Tough break,” Theron said, speaking for the first time. He waved one hand between the two closed doors and continued, in a sympathetic tone of voice, “Working for two bosses, I mean.”

The Nikto and the Gamorrean exchanged glances before the Nikto spoke again, “Dul Sonn’s not the boss.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the other office. “Jarsk is the boss.”

_Shit,_ Theron thought. All the intel Sil’aya’s people had provided had indicated that Dul Sonn was the man in charge of this slaving operation, and the plan had been to take him out and as much of the headquarters – and its staff – as possible along with him. Theron had never heard of this ‘Jarsk’ person and had no idea who they were, or even if they were actually behind that closed door. He didn’t understand how Sil’aya’s team could have missed something as important as this, especially when it was clear from the Nikto’s attitude that this information wasn’t exactly a secret.

Beside him Vector grew agitated, pacing. When he spoke, it was with the tone of voice of a man much accustomed to getting his own way who was being told ‘no’ for the first time: “Why, then, am I speaking with Dul Sonn when this Jarsk individual sounds like the person I should have been directed to?” He got right into the Nikto’s personal space, leaning over the counter to stare the other man down. The Nikto was taller than Vector, but Vector carried himself with such dignity and grace that it made him _seem_ larger, and the Nikto was clearer intimidated by him.

It was the Gamorrean who spoke up. “Relax, _peedunky,_ Dul Sonn’s the guy you wanna speak to about selling your little _schutta._ He oversees the slaves. Jarsk only gets involved if Dul Sonn makes a bad purchase.”

“Ah.” Vector pretended to calm down somewhat, but Theron could see that he was still anxious, no doubt about this sudden addition to their plans. “Well, might I at least have a word with them? Perhaps I’ll get a better trade if I go to the man in charge.”

“Yeah, well, he ain’t here.” The Gamorrean shrugged his massive shoulders. “You deal with Dul Sonn or you deal with nobody. No skin off my snout.”

Theron looked towards Vector, the two of them weighing their options. Sil’aya hadn’t mentioned Jarsk and hadn’t specifically stated that she wanted them to take out the entire operation in exchange for the intel on Amrielle. She had simply wanted this headquarters taken down. Did that mean that her crew intended to go after Jarsk themselves, or did it mean that they didn’t know anything about this over-boss? If Theron, Vector and Miranza failed to take Jarsk down, did that mean Sil’aya wouldn’t hold up her end of the bargain? He glanced away, back to the Nikto, and sighed heavily. They didn’t have enough information to go on. All they could do would be to complete this op as planned and hope for the best. If Sil’aya’s team wanted them to go after Jarsk afterwards, well, they could renegotiate.

Vector hadn’t moved from where he stood directly in front of the Nikto, and Theron was still standing near the Gamorrean when the office door opened and Miranza stepped outside. The Gamorrean was almost directly in front of the door; she nearly ran into him. He turned when he heard the door opening, his beady black eyes widening comically. Miranza looked none the worse for wear although her costume was a bit rumpled and there was blood on her face. Theron was pretty positive that wasn’t _her_ blood. Judging from their startled reactions, the Nikto and the Gamorrean were of the same mind.

“Ah, yes.” Vector cocked his head to one side, pinning the Nikto with a hard look. “This is the part where the two of you begin rethinking your life choices.”

Theron was completely unsurprised when the Nikto pulled out a sawed-off blaster rifle from under the counter and the Gamorrean immediately raised both blaster pistols. Vector moved, lightning-fast, grabbing the Nikto by the collar and hauling him over the counter so quickly the startled man dropped his weapon. It landed on the floor with a metallic-sounding clatter. Theron didn’t have time to watch the Joiner take down the Nikto, as he and Miranza moved in tandem, him going high, her going low as they closed in on the Gamorrean. Theron’s fist slammed into the surprised Gamorrean’s jaw – he winced as he caught the back of his hand against one of the other man’s lower tusks – just as Miranza kicked out his knees. The Gamorrean must’ve had a glass jaw because he didn’t even have time to fire off a single shot: Theron’s punch knocked him out, instantly. Theron finished him off with a blaster shot to the head just as Vector was wrapping up with his own opponent.

“Disappointing,” the Joiner commented quietly, wiping his bloodied hands off on the dead Nikto’s jacket, “but not surprising.”

“As if you were really planning to let them go,” Theron replied, dropping the Gamorrean’s pistol onto the floor before heading behind the counter to retrieve their own weapons.

“No,” Vector said, voice soft. He glanced in Miranza’s direction, silently taking in the sight of the blood smeared on her cheek and the new bruising along her jawline. His eyes were still greenish-hazel instead of his usual all-black; he was holding his bond in check, unwilling to shed his “human” disguise too soon. “I don’t suppose I was.”

Not that Theron blamed him, not in the least. These men were slavers; they bought and sold sentient beings, many of them children, and as far as Theron was concerned the quick, near-painless death Vector offered was a mercy none of them deserved. (He knew Vector would grant that mercy nonetheless, because the Joiner was angry, but not so incensed that his Killik nature would take over. Theron had seen it happen on more than one occasion and it was never pretty – but it _was_ beautiful, in a “righteous avenger” sort of way.)

Vector’s voice was still soft as he asked, “Are you well?”

“Peachy,” Miranza said. Her own voice was tight, but to Theron’s practiced eye she appeared largely uninjured, the bruise on her face the only visible sign of damage – and it was barely noticeable. She mostly just looked pissed. “There are no slaves in that back office, just boxes of speeder parts.” That made sense: Theron had gotten the impression that this place masqueraded as a repair shop of some sort.

“Let’s see what’s behind door number two,” Theron replied, heading in the direction of Jarsk’s office. In the chaos he had completely forgotten that this door had some kind of biometric lock and ocular scanner setup, but fortunately it appeared that the Gamorrean guardsman had been capable of unlocking it. Theron and Vector had to work together to drag the heavy body towards the door, but it was simple enough for Miranza to flop the dead man’s hand onto the lock and prop his eyelids open long enough to be scanned. A green light flashed, followed by an audible click and the door fell open.

Jarsk’s office was not an office at all. Instead it was a small open warehouse area composed entirely of wall-to-wall cages. Theron was relieved to see that the majority of the cages were empty (he forcibly restrained himself from considering where their “contents” might be); those that weren’t contained men, women and some few children, all of them filthy, many of them barely clothed or completely naked.

Miranza let loose what Theron presumed were a string of curses, speaking in a language – or multiple languages, it was hard to say for certain – that he didn’t know. He understood the tone, however. She turned to Vector, a small, savage smile on her face, and said, “Would you mind getting the doorguards, love?”

Vector’s smile was equally vicious. “With great pleasure.” The Joiner turned and headed back to the main entrance area, swinging his electrostaff with deliberate gusto. Theron debated joining him, but he was confident Vector could handle the two doorguards on his own, and it looked like the Joiner could use the opportunity to vent a few frustrations – violently.

The cages were ridiculously easy to open; Theron could have picked the locks with a paperclip or a bobby pin and one hand tied behind his back. Fortunately he didn’t need to - they’d brought a proper lockpicking kit, which made short work of the basic padlocks. He and Miranza worked quickly to free the slaves, drawing them out of the cages and watching in silence as couples and families reunited. Theron counted twenty-seven people in total, nine of them children. The majority of the slaves were Twi’lek, almost all of them with the same pale green skin, suggesting they were probably related or at least from the same general region. They were all dirty and malnourished – the children, in particular, showed evidence of poor nutrition – but sudden freedom seemed to give them the energy they needed to regroup.

Fortunately Sil’aya’s crew had a plan in place for the slaves they had suspected would be at Dul Sonn’s location, because Theron honestly wasn’t sure how they were going to get twenty-seven sick, weak and exhausted people onto the _Mercurial._ Miranza’s ship was decently-sized for something that wasn’t meant to haul cargo, but it wasn’t large enough to accommodate that many people and the medbay _certainly_ wasn’t going to be sufficient for all their medical needs. A cursory examination revealed that the ex-slaves were largely uninjured, but many of them were sick and they were all in need of more medical care than the three of them were capable of providing. Sil’aya had people on standby, however; a quick holocall would have them ready at a location on the outskirts of the Nikto sector.

They would draw a significant amount of attention getting them from the slaving ring’s headquarters to the rendezvous location, but that couldn’t be helped. Theron was fully prepared to blast his way through the Nikto sector if that’s what it took to get these people to safety, and he strongly suspected Miranza and Vector were of the same mindset.

It was simple work to mix and set the charges the way Kaliyo had shown them. Theron was a little nervous handling highly explosive chemicals, but Miranza – who had known and worked with the Rattataki for years – was largely unconcerned. The two of them worked quickly, setting up the charges from one end of the headquarters to the other. Vector joined them after dragging in the bodies of the two doorguards and dumping them alongside the other Nikto he had killed. The slaves eyed the pile of corpses warily, but one or two children dared to come forward, kicking their captors and doing disturbingly happy little dances around the bodies. Theron tried not to think too much about it - honestly, if he had had the chance, he probably would’ve kicked Darth Jadzira’s corpse himself. He understood the elation these kids were likely feeling, even if he’d been too muddled on spice and Force-tampering to appreciate his own freedom when it had happened.

While Vector and Miranza finished up with the explosives Theron rifled through some boxes in the back room off the first office until he came up with some clothing for the slaves to wear. He handed out what he had found, offering the smaller coats and shirts to the children first, then to those adults who were more scantily-clad than the others. He managed to save one last coat for Miranza, who had made the trip to the headquarters in skimpy slave-wear but who he knew would be grateful to have some covering. She wasn’t body shy in the least, but an attractive woman in flimsy veils and gauze tended to draw the eye. (Not that their little group wasn’t going to be eye-catching: people tended to notice an army of thirty people stomping around, even on Nar Shaddaa.) Far better for the crowds on Nar Shaddaa to pay attention to the recently-freed slaves than to Vector, Theron or Miranza; unlike the slaves, the three of them had covers to maintain.

Headquarters set to blow, Theron ushered the slaves outside, Vector and Miranza following close behind. Miranza had the detonator in one hand, the other hand clutching her coat – which was a size or two too small to really provide effective covering – closed in front of her. Once everyone was at a safe distance she bent down next to one of the more traumatized-looking children, a little Twi’lek boy with dark red skin and a line of scars down one cheek.

“Boom?” she suggested, before murmuring something in Huttese. Miranza wasn’t great with children – of the three of them, Vector was the only one who seemed to have any clue what to do with them – but apparently she knew how to handle traumatized soon-to-be-former slave children.

The little boy smiled, his eyes losing their vacant, lost look as he reached out one trembling hand to the detonator. Then, growing more confident, he smacked his palm down on the button with enough force that Miranza had to grip the box tightly to keep it from being knocked to the ground.

The explosion knocked Theron back on his ass and left him with ringing ears, but fuck, it was worth it.

O o O o O

Theron was stewing in his own self-imposed misery the entire trip back from the rendezvous. Miranza could tell. On the surface he was friendly and cheerful – he’d lifted one of the smaller kids up onto his shoulders to carry them to the meeting place with Sil’aya’s people, he’d made polite small-talk with some of the adults, he’d given every impression that everything was fine – but she knew him better than that and she wasn’t fooled. He was beating himself up over his inability to play the role of a slave, blaming himself for nearly blowing their mission just because he couldn’t handle having a collar around his neck. Miranza hadn’t been completely comfortable with it herself, but she was much further removed from her own negative experiences – stars, Alderaan had been close to a decade ago; when had they all gotten so _old?_ – whereas Theron’s time with Darth Jadzira had been much, _much_ more recent. (And, in Miranza’s mind, much worse.) She had been able to get around her own discomfort; Theron had not, and that was okay. That was why the three of them were a team: because they could cover and make up for each other’s weaknesses. Despite all the years he’d spent working with them, however, Theron still had a very hard time accepting that Vector and Miranza were on his side and weren’t going to abandon him, not for his own perceived failures, not for any reason. It made her wish for the ability to travel through time just so that she could hunt down every single person who had ever given up on Theron and break them down into their component atoms.

They could talk about it. They _should_ talk about it.

Miranza was really more of an “actions speak louder than words” kind of girl.

As they approached the gangway to the _Mercurial_ she caught Vector’s eye behind Theron’s slumped shoulders and held up one hand in a fist. The Joiner smiled at her, just a faint uplifting of one corner of his mouth, and held up his own fist. _One, two, three._ She threw paper; Vector, obliging, threw rock. He knew her tactics, knew that she telegraphed her throws because she seldom cared about the outcome, and apparently he was completely on board with Miranza taking charge of this particular situation.

See? Teamwork.

Theron was barely on board the ship when Miranza crowded him up against the nearest bulkhead, letting the coat he’d given her drop to the floor at their feet. His eyes were round and blinking rapidly, his self-recriminating funk giving way to a sort of amused wariness.

“Hey,” he said, as she pressed him into the wall, “What’s goin’ on?” He tried for casual. He failed. She knew him too well.

“You think too much,” she told him, a line she’d said to him dozens of times before now and would likely say dozens upon dozens of times in the future. She went up on tiptoes to place a kiss on the curve of his jaw, tracing a path to his mouth. He leaned into her, hands coming up to her hips before he flinched away at the unexpected contact of skin on skin. She saw it on his face: he’d forgotten, until that exact moment, that she was only wearing that deplorable slave-girl costume. Almost instantly she saw his face shut down, his eyes growing hooded and dark.

“Miri …,” he said, holding his hands up in the air as if he didn’t know where to touch her. She caught his wrists and drew his hands back to her hips, holding him in place until he relaxed against her. His thumbs stroked her bare skin.

“She’s right, love,” said Vector. He came up beside them, one hand tightening around the braids in Theron’s hair to draw the other man’s head back. He planted a trail of kisses along the exposed lines of Theron’s neck before murmuring in Theron’s ear, “You’ve done nothing to disappoint us. We’re all right.”

Theron shoved them both off, hands in the air again, a defensive, warding-off gesture. His eyes were on the damned bruise on Miranza’s face: a misstep on her part when she hadn’t dodged Dul Sonn’s fist quickly enough. It was the only mark the man had left on her. She’d done far, _far_ worse.

“You’re hurt,” Theron said, gesturing at the bruise. “If I had been there –”

“I’m _fine,”_ Miranza insisted. As if to demonstrate Vector leaned in and kissed the bruise, his lips pressing down on the tender skin with great deliberation. She shivered, that small burst of painful-pleasure sending little thrills throughout her body. She locked eyes with Theron. “So you can’t do honeypot jobs right now. So what?”

“I can do honeypot jobs!” Theron protested. She arched an eyebrow at him, thinking back to the Gamorrean who wanted Theron to join them, and she saw the moment he read the memory on her face. His own face reddened and he backed away as far as the bulkhead would let him, which wasn’t terribly far. “Fine. Fine. I’m not … I’m not okay with playing bait right now. I just … between the collar and … being touched … I just … I can’t …”

“And that is okay,” Miranza said gently, not letting him flounder for too long. “We do the jobs we’re comfortable with, love. You have good reasons to not … to not want to do any of that.” She didn’t care to elaborate. All three of them knew _exactly_ what Theron wasn’t comfortable with - and why.

She caught Theron’s wrist, grip loose enough that he could easily pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t. She tugged him towards the central seating area, pushing him down onto the couch. The _Mercurial_ was a big ship; by this point the three of them had had sex on pretty much every surface, including that couch. It conjured up happy memories for her, and - hopefully - for Theron, too. She straddled his waist, careful to keep her weight on her knees instead of settling on his lap where he might feel pinned. His arms went around her waist, hands on her ass to hold her in place. He was looking skeptical but at least that dreadful self-loathing was gone from his eyes. Vector stood behind her and she leaned against him, letting him take some of her weight.

“Theron,” she said, voice soft and earnest, “even if you could never do another undercover operation, that would be all right. We would be fine with that.”

“I don’t know why you put up with me sometimes,” he said, sounding forlorn. The paint Kaliyo had used to create an elaborate tattoo around his implants had started to smear, greys and golds and reds running together along the left side of his face. Miranza rubbed her thumb over it, smearing it further, and he instinctively tilted his head towards her touch, making her smile. He reminded her of a cat sometimes, always leaning in to be petted and caressed. She and Vector were always happy to oblige.

“Oh, I can think of a few reasons,” she said, tone deliberately light. For all her levity she made sure he could see the sincerity on her face. She was practiced at faking sincerity, but Theron _knew_ her and would be able to see the honesty in her eyes, would know she wasn’t faking this. “You’re smart, for one thing. Brilliant, even.”

“Devilishly handsome,” Vector supplied, smiling. His hands were on Miranza’s shoulders, the tips of his fingers stroking over her collarbones. Damn, maybe she was part cat, too, because she couldn’t help but arch into his caress.

“Deeply compassionate,” she continued. “You have a wicked sense of humour.”

“You’re the bravest man we know,” said Vector. Theron’s breath hitched and he bit his lip, shaking his head.

Miranza slid her hand up into his hair, forcing his head back. She didn’t like this hairstyle; it didn’t give her much to grip on to. Theron’s eyes were closed; he wouldn’t look at her. She leaned in and whispered, “It’s true. All of it.”

“It’s not,” he protested, keeping his eyes closed although he let her adjust his head however she liked. If his eyes had opened he would’ve been forced into staring directly at her. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, struggling to find some way to express how completely and utterly false their praise was, but the words didn’t seem to want to come out. Miranza liked to think that perhaps it was because there was a part of him that was finally cluing into the fact that she and Vector _meant_ every kriffing thing they said to him, and that they would keep on meaning it no matter how many times his insecurities necessitated them saying it.

“You’re bloody brilliant, Theron Shan,” she told him, hearing Vector’s echoing murmur of agreement, “and we fucking love you, darling.”

“We do,” Vector said, his Joiner nature lending the plural pronoun multiple layers of meaning. “We really, truly do, love. Even when you’re occasionally rather obtuse about the whole matter.”

Theron let out a half-laugh, half-sob, eyes blinking open. His eyelashes were damp. His arms tightened around Miranza’s waist and he drew her in closer, pressing a needy kiss to her lips. She let him control the kiss, sighing happily into his mouth, his lips warm and slightly chapped. Behind her Vector was a welcome weight, his hands still on her shoulders, the warmth and solidity of him lending her strength, as always. Her heart felt impossibly full, there on her spaceship with the two men she loved most in the galaxy. Once again she found herself thinking that if it had taken Arcann tearing everything to pieces in order for her and Theron and Vector to come together - as they were _meant_ to - then perhaps she owed the Emperor an apology and she wholehearted praise. She couldn’t conceive of going back to the life they had led before, with her and Vector on one side of the galaxy and Theron on the other, the three of them separated by political boundaries and diverging ideologies. If it took the galaxy being destroyed for them to be together, then - fuck it, let the galaxy burn.

“I’ll get better,” Theron murmured, oblivious to her thoughts.

“You will,” Vector agreed. He bent down for a kiss of his own before adding, “But on your own terms, and it will not change the way we feel about you. We love you as-is.”

When Vector drew away again Miranza settled in against Theron’s chest, her lips hovering over his. He was smiling now; it was faint, but it was there, in his eyes if not yet on his lips.

“Here,” she said, breathing the words against Theron’s skin as Vector crowded in close. “Let us show you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wicked Ones" is by Dorothy.
> 
> And yeah, Theron's hairstyle is a nod to his post-Umbara "traitor" 'do, which I kinda dig.
> 
> _Peedunky_ : Huttese, loosely translates to 'punk'  
>  _Schutta_ : Ryloth/Twi'lek, someone of poor repute (usually reserved for female individuals, so you can pretty much swap in any other misogynistic word of your choice)


	53. Every Day Is a Winding Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New arrivals stir up excitement on Odessen.
> 
> (In which Crumpet throws canon out the window so that she can play with all of her garbage children.)

_**Odessen, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

When the insistent chiming of the holocomm first started it found its way into Theron’s dream, only instead of a comm alert it was the ringing of the fire alarm in his apartment on Coruscant, there was a burning breakfast pastry in the toaster, he couldn’t find the fire extinguisher or remember where he’d left the keys to his speeder, and for some reason he was wearing full SCUBA gear and kept tripping over his flippers. The resulting confusion meant that it took him a very long time to drag himself back to consciousness, and once he was awake it took even longer for him to remember where the kriff he was. The grumbling figure beside him – trying to burrow his way back under the pillow – gave him the hint he needed: he was on Odessen, on the base, sandwiched in bed between a very disgruntled Vector and an even more unimpressed Miranza.

“Kill it,” Miranza muttered, head buried under her own pillow, “Kill it with fire.”

“Ugh, what time is it?” Theron groaned. He flailed around a bit, trying to wriggle free from the sheets that were tangled around his feet – that explained the flippers thing – and look for the chrono at the same time. 3 AM. _Ugh._ Kill it with fire, indeed. It wasn’t fair: this was one of the few nights he’d managed to fall asleep quickly and easily, and while his dream had been weird Theron didn’t get the sense it had been starting to twist into a nightmare, and those nights were few and far between. Most nights now were spent with Miranza and Vector; he hated that he disrupted their sleep with his nightmares (to be fair, they both had their slew of nightmares to contend with, as well), but the fact of the matter was that he slept better with them. He still had his own private room for the days and nights when Darth Jadzira’s talons wouldn’t let him rest, but for the most part the room was just there as a precaution. (That, and the fact that he still felt uncomfortable using the communal ‘freshers. Even a private shower stall within the communal area felt too exposed and vulnerable.) Progress was being made, however, and he was annoyed to have what promised to be a good night’s rest disrupted by a holocall.

Miranza, on the side of the bed where the nightstand stood, upon which rested the offending holocomm, rolled over onto her side and slapped at the surface of the nightstand until her hand landed on the comm. There was a brief crackle, and then Lana Beniko’s disembodied voice echoed throughout their bedroom.

_“I apologize for the late hour, but I need the three of you to come to the docks right away.”_

“Lana, how are you even functional?” Miranza grumbled, pushing herself to a sitting position. Her hair was a riot of curls and Theron could see pillow-marks on her cheek, as well as a faint hint of drool at the corner of her mouth. He grinned to himself; the only people who ever got to see her in such complete disarray were him and Vector. The rest of the galaxy only saw what Miranza chose for them to see.

_“I’m not,”_ Lana replied, and there was a note of chagrin in her voice. _“My head is pounding and I promise to never drink anything Gault Rennow offers me ever again, but there’s no rest for the wicked, as you well know.”_

Theron snorted and rolled over, sitting up. Beside him Vector smacked at his thigh with one hand while trying to drag the sheets back over himself with the other. Miranza and Lana had been at the cantina last night, drinking and gossiping about people they had known back in Imperial space. Theron was under the impression it had started out as a business meeting – an attempt at consolidating their contacts and resources – and then had turned into reminiscing about the good old days. Which was hilarious, so far as Theron was concerned, because from what Miranza had shared with him there was very little about her past with Imperial Intelligence – or Imperial society in general – that could be considered ‘good.’ He was happy that she and Lana were finding the time to bond, however; Miranza didn’t have a lot of friends on Odessen, and she and Lana had a certain shared pragmatism that was otherwise hard to find in the Alliance.

_“Meet me at the docks in ten minutes, please,”_ Lana said. She didn’t wait for their replies; the holocall kicked off with a sullen beep.

“No,” Vector said, clearly and distinctly from within his protective cocoon of blankets and pillows. The Joiner didn’t have Miranza’s hangover excuse, but Theron knew he had been up late going over resupply requests from Hylo and Bey’wan; he was trying to sort out the cheapest and most efficient means of getting food stuffs and equipment to Odessen. Zakuulan interference meant they had to keep changing up their suppliers and travel routes. Theron knew this because he had also been up late, only instead of requisitions he had been reviewing field reports from Wild Space. All reports made their way to him; thanks to an eidetic memory and what Lana called one of the most orderly minds _(ha!)_ on Odessen Theron was the one tasked with going through reports on patrols, interactions with the Eternal Empire and anything else that might be pertinent to the Alliance in order to find patterns and correlations between them. There were a lot of reports and there were only so many hours in a day. He’d only gone to bed an hour or so ago, and that was because Vector had found him facedown on a pile of datapads at his desk, snoring and drooling, and had forcibly dragged him to bed. (Well, not forcibly, exactly. There may have been bribery of a sexual nature involved. Unfortunately Theron was pretty sure they’d both passed out from exhaustion before things could get really interesting.) Vector, like Theron, was completely exhausted, and Lana’s summons could not have been more unwelcome – but they still needed to answer it.

“Come on,” Theron said, deliberately making himself as annoyingly cheerful and chipper as he could. He bounded out of bed and began hunting down their clothes, tossing a T-shirt at Vector and a bra at Miranza. She sniffed the bra and wrinkled her nose, dropping it back on the floor and, with evident displeasure, getting up in search of proper clothing.

“We need to do laundry,” she said, finding a bra that didn’t offend her delicate sensibilities and pulling it on under her shirt. She paused, fingers pressed to the bridge of her nose. “If I start a rumour that someone is planning to set up laundering services here on Odessen, do you think someone else – someone _real_ – will actually do it just to get the jump on a potential rival?”

“Probably.” Theron’s trousers had a caf stain on one thigh but the fabric was dark enough that it was unlikely anyone would notice. Well, Lana would probably notice, but Theron didn’t really care; she’d seen him with bedhead and stained clothing before. He shrugged and pulled the trousers on. “Can’t hurt to try.” There were enough civilian refugees on Odessen – people who weren’t involved in the fighting or the day-to-day running of the Alliance – that people were beginning to set up shops and businesses. There were armourers, tailors, vendors of small trinkets and luxury items, even a small roast gorak stand, but so far no one was offering laundering services. Frankly, the three of them didn’t have time for basic household chores like laundry, cooking and cleaning: they ate most of their meals on the run or in the cantina and they paid an elderly Togruta woman to clean their room, and laundry tended to be a last-minute “oh shit we have nothing to wear” sort of deal. If some intrepid soul on Odessen decided to establish themselves doing Alliance laundry they could make a killing. Theron would be first in line.

It took both Theron and Miranza to get Vector out of bed and dressed, but well within the ten minute time limit the three of them were out of their room and heading for the docks. This early in the morning (or late at night) the base was relatively quiet, although the Odessen base never truly shut down during the night: there were always ships coming in, deliveries being made, runners carrying messages; the hustle and bustle of activity never really stopped, it just slowed down for a little while. As a result the docks were quiet but not empty; a pair of soldiers passed them on patrol, and there were a trio of pilots shooting the breeze against a bank of cargo crates while some droids unloaded the cargo from a nearby ship. People noticed the three of them making their way to the docks, but no one paid them any attention. It wasn’t unusual to see the Alliance advisors up and about in the wee hours. As Lana had said, there was no rest for the wicked.

Lana, looking far more alert and awake than she had any right to, was standing to one side of an empty landing pad, her gaze on the sky. When she heard the three of them approaching she turned, datapad in hand, and shot them a wry smile. Beside her was Caedan Savarr, who gave Theron a smile of his own before going back to looking skyward.

“Thank you for joining us,” Lana said, a sardonic note in her voice. “I’m sorry for dragging you out here, but we’ve had an emergency communication.”

“Oh?” Miranza sounded only politely curious, but Theron could see the spark of interest in her dark blue eyes. “What’s going on?” She tilted her head upwards, peering off into the night sky as if she could spot whatever it was Lana and Caedan were looking for. “Are we expecting someone?”

“Yes,” said Lana. She held a datapad out to Miranza, showing her the message on its surface.

Miranza read the message, her eyes widening in surprise. “You can’t be serious.”

Vector made an inquisitive noise as Theron said, “Anything you want to share with the class?”

“It’s the Wrath,” said Caedan, his tone curiously flat. “The new Wrath. Well. The one that’s not Lord Scourge.” He glanced at Lana before adding, “I don’t think she’s working for the Emperor anymore, what with him being dead and all, but I’m not really sure what her proper title is now.”

“It’s still the Wrath,” Lana assured him. “Or Lord Evorsio. Or Darth Xaora. ‘My lord’ would also be acceptable.”

“Yeah,” Caedan said, scoffing, _“That’s_ gonna happen.”

Lana frowned but said nothing. Theron, still getting absolutely nothing out of the conversation aside from amusement at the Commander of the Alliance being a little shit, turned and gave Lana a pointed look that he then transferred to Miranza. It was three-thirty in the morning, he was tired and he wanted to be back in bed, not discussing proper Sith titles and nomenclature. Apparently Vector shared his annoyance.

“This is all wonderful,” the Joiner said testily, not bothering to hide his yawn, “but could we perhaps continue this discussion in the morning? Preferably after tea?”

“The Emperor’s Wrath is coming. Here, to Odessen,” Lana said, finally taking pity on them. There was a certain breathy quality to her voice, as if she was hovering somewhere between excitement and trepidation. Theron was dimly aware of who and what ‘the Wrath’ was – according to Republic rumours, the Wrath was the Emperor’s hound and personal assassin, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why this mattered now, given – as Caedan had already pointed out – that the Sith Emperor was dead. Unless this woman worked for Empress Acina now? Did the new Emperor inherit the old Emperor’s lackeys? Was that how this shit worked in Imperial society?

“She’s joining the Alliance,” Lana went on, oblivious to Theron’s thoughts. “I thought it best that when she arrive here, she be greeted by fellow Imperials – and Theron, I thought you might provide a show of solidarity for the Commander, to demonstrate that the Alliance _is_ a _true_ alliance, Imperial and Republic alike.” Unspoken was the message that Miranza, Vector and Theron were all spies, and that information-gathering about important Imperial citizens was very much in their wheelhouse.

Caedan made a disgruntled sound, waving one hand dismissively. “Let’s not be too hasty, there. The emergency message didn’t say anything about her joining us, it just said she’d been attacked. She’s coming here to hide out from her enemies, not because she’s suddenly had some change of heart about the Eternal Empire.”

“Darth Xaora was attacked?” From the way Miranza spoke the Wrath’s name, Theron suspected she knew the woman, or at least knew more of her than he did. (Which didn’t say much, given that _he_ knew next to nothing.) Of course, Miranza had worked in Imperial Intelligence for years before she and Theron had met, and for many more years afterwards; it made sense that she would know – or at least know of – the more important members of Imperial society. And if Theron’s limited intel was any indication, the Emperor’s Wrath was most definitely an Imperial VIP.

“Yes,” said Lana, pointedly ignoring the Commander’s snark. “There was an assault on her private residence in Rishi. They escaped and immediately made their way here.”

“’They’?” Vector repeated, but his question was drowned out by the sudden arrival of a rather battered-looking spaceship coming in hot. Even from this distance and with the dim light of early morning Theron could see that the ship had come under heavy fire – thick black smoke poured out from the engines and the flight trajectory was all over the place.

_“—repeat, this is – come in – do you –”_ A man’s voice, speaking in a clipped Imperial accent, sounded over the comms. _“We – cannot land – requesting immediate –”_

“Kriff,” Theron said, suddenly realizing the problem. The ship’s systems must be damaged; it wasn’t able to be landed properly. “They’re going to crash.”

“Not if we can help it,” said Caedan, and the next thing Theron knew the Outlander and Lana were moving towards the landing pad, their arms raised high above their heads, matching expressions of intense concentration on their faces. Theron had seen enough Jedi – and Sith – at work to recognize the Force being manipulated around him, even if he lacked the sensitivity to feel it himself.

Despite all the times Theron had seen the Force in action, it still amazed him to witness the feats that could be accomplished through it. He felt a familiar pang of jealousy watching Caedan and Lana working together to bring the damaged ship in safely. Behind him Vector caught hold of Theron’s shoulder, using his grip to draw him back a few paces, away from the potential crash site. The Joiner was quick to put himself between Theron and Miranza and possible danger, but from what Theron could see Lana and Caedan appeared to have the situation under control.

“They’re helping us,” Lana murmured, eyes closed as she reached out with the Force.

_They?_ Theron wondered, unconsciously echoing Vector’s earlier comment. He kept his questions to himself. He would find out soon enough.

The ship came to a shuddering stop about a hundred feet above the landing pad and just held there for a few seconds while Lana and Caedan pushed and pulled and twisted the Force around it. Then, slowly, with only the faintest hint of wobbling, the damaged spaceship began lowering to the ground. Theron watched as the engines were powered down, the ship going completely dead in the air; Caedan made a fist, twisting his hand, and the landing gear shot out, one after another. The spaceship pitched to one side before being righted, then landed with only a few gentle bumps onto the duracrete platform.

The landing gear gave out, collapsing under the weight of the damaged ship, and the whole thing came down with a loud groan of metal and plasteel. The drop was only about a meter or so, but it took a few minutes for them – working together with the people inside the ship – to force the airlock door open.

Darth Xaora Evorsio, the Emperor’s Wrath, was the first person to disembark.

She was, unequivocally, the tallest Sith Pureblood woman Theron had ever seen. Had Barrazhat been there for comparison it was entirely possible she might have been taller than him, even. She towered over the five of them, head held high and shoulders back, and stepped off the ship like an empress descending from her throne. She had broad shoulders – enhanced somewhat by the spiky armour she wore – and a strong, muscular build that gave Theron conflicting desires to climb her or run away screaming. She was attractive, in a harsh, alien way: deep red skin, long auburn hair, vivid yellow eyes and a host of golden piercings on her lips, eyebrows, nose and ears.

She was also rather noticeably pregnant. And limping.

And carrying a small child on her hip.

This … this was not what Theron had pictured when he heard the words “the Emperor’s Wrath.” Or rather, the woman herself was – honestly, he couldn’t think of a more exemplary Sith – but the pregnancy and the little kid were definitely a bit of a shocker. It was impossible to picture a Sith lord as someone with a family, and yet … there it was, right there in front of Theron.

Behind her was another kid, his age somewhat indeterminate – Theron wasn’t great at guessing that sort of thing – but he was old enough to be carrying a lightsaber, and he had it out and lit, the red blade casting an ominous glow over their surroundings. He was tall and gangly, his skin a paler shade of red than his … mother’s? (Theron could only assume) and with jet-black hair cut short and neat. He immediately moved to stand protectively in front of the Wrath, and if that wasn’t just simultaneously the cutest and most terrifying thing Theron had ever seen, he didn’t know what was.

_Fuck me, how is this my life?_ Theron thought, staring back at the kid. The Emperor’s Wrath was a giant pregnant Sith lady and there was a prepubescent Sith lord brandishing a lightsaber. If Theron didn’t know better he would swear he was dreaming, but his nightmares never looked anything like this.

More people were coming out of the spaceship: two men – both human, Theron saw – and two more children. One of the men, a pale, dark-haired Imperial in a somewhat rumpled-looking grey and black uniform, carried a small toddler snug to his chest; his other arm was in a makeshift sling that looked to have started its life as a rather colourful and expensive scarf. The other child looked about five or so, a little girl who carried herself with extreme gravitas despite giving every evidence of being about ten seconds away from falling asleep where she stood. All the children had dark hair and a mixture of Sith-red and human-pale skin; they were all quite striking, and all quite serious-looking. None of them appeared frightened or on the verge of tears, which Theron calculated as being a near-impossibility given that they’d all nearly died in a spaceship crash – and that was after being attacked and running for their lives.

And then there was the second man, and Theron’s first and only thought upon seeing him was _Oh shit, he’s hot._

Compared to the Pureblood woman and the pale-skinned Imperial this man wasn’t quite as tall, perhaps around Theron’s own height, but he had the broad shoulders and narrow waist Theron found appealing in men, and he would have been considered heavily muscled if he hadn’t been standing in close proximity to a woman built like a tank. He had sable-dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and rich brown eyes, and the deep, russet-brown skin of his face bore the distinctive red tattoos of someone with ancient Sith heritage. He kept back from the group, those dark, dark eyes scanning his surroundings as a faint smirk tugged at his lips. He gave every appearance of finding the entire situation vaguely amusing, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of everything but felt it safe to assume it was all some kind of cosmic joke that he wanted no part of.

“My lord,” Lana said, her eyes on the Pureblood. She gave a courteous nod that wasn’t quite a bow but fell somewhere close, and the Sith woman’s gaze darted towards her.

Surprisingly, the Pureblood smiled. “Lana. It’s good to see you again.” She flicked a glance in Caedan’s direction, smile dimming noticeably. “Master Savarr. It’s been a long time.”

“You two know each other?” Theron asked, surprised at seeing recognition on the Wrath’s face.

“Yeah,” Caedan said shortly, eyes still on the Wrath. Then, in a voice curiously without affect he added, “Scourge says hi.”

The Wrath tilted her head to one side, eyeing Caedan curiously. “You’ve seen the traitor?”

Caedan shrugged, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. “Not in about … oh, seven years or so.”

The pale-skinned Imperial let out an impatient noise, shifting the weight of the child he was carrying as much as he could with only one arm. Now that he had moved closer Theron could see that the man had a rather nasty burn along the left side of his face – the same side as the immobilized arm – and the beginnings of a fairly impressive shiner. Looking around at the rest of the group Theron noticed that they all appeared to show various signs of injury, although the children were for the most part only a bit bruised. The Wrath had a healing blaster burn on one side of her neck – that would’ve been a close call, then, to have hit but not killed her – and the other man had small jagged cuts across his face, almost hidden by the Sith tattoos.

“With all due respect, my lord,” said the Imperial, and to Caedan’s shock and Theron’s amusement it seemed he was directing the title at the Commander, “The children are exhausted and we have injured among us. Might we perhaps save the sniping for a more appropriate time?”

The Pureblood Sith looked towards the man with an impossibly fond expression on her face. “The only one in need of medical attention is you, Malavai.” She turned back to Caedan. “Major Quinn is right, however: the children are exhausted. Is there someplace we might …?”

Lana, who had been staring back and forth between the Pureblood and the pale-skinned Imperial with an expression of shock on her face, quickly resumed her normal calm demeanour and nodded tightly. “Of course, my lord. If it suits you, I can have Theron escort your husband to medical, and Miranza can show the children to the nursery? I’m afraid we don’t have anything set up for your family – not yet, at least, given the short notice – but we can make temporary arrangements for the night. Commander Savarr and I can debrief you in private.”

Theron didn’t know what he found more amusing, the idea of _Miranza_ – who didn’t have the tiniest drop of maternal instinct in her entire body – being given the task of seeing to the Wrath’s children, or at Caedan being informed he was going to be ‘debriefing’ anyone, much less the Emperor’s (former) pet assassin. Both of them had expressions of extreme discomfort on their faces but were too much the professionals to give the impression that they weren’t in complete solidarity with Lana. Fortunately it was Vector who saved the day – for Miranza, at least. The Joiner smiled and immediately stepped forward to take the child from Major Quinn’s arms; to the surprise of everyone save Theron and Miranza the little boy gave Vector a sleepy grin and cuddled up against him as if he’d known the Joiner his entire life. After a moment’s pause Miranza took the other small child from the Wrath, making every effort to look as though she handled babies all the time. (Theron, who knew better, wasn’t fooled in the least.) The child was less receptive than the one Vector was holding and immediately began to cry, much to Miranza’s obvious distress.

“Rymar,” said the Wrath, speaking to the eldest boy, the one with the lightsaber, “Go with Agents Gerrick and Hyllus, and help them take care of your siblings.” The fact that Lana hadn’t mentioned either Miranza’s or Vector’s last names – indeed, she hadn’t mentioned Vector at all – told Theron that the Wrath had met the two spies before, and he found himself insanely curious about that story. He knew Miranza’s general opinion was that all Sith were inherently crazy, and wondered if that opinion extended to the Emperor’s Wrath.

“Yes ma’am,” the boy – Rymar, apparently – replied. He disengaged his lightsaber and hooked it onto his belt, taking the hand of the little girl who stood beside him. “Come on, Kessie, you heard Mama.”

Theron nearly lost it at hearing anyone refer to the Emperor’s Wrath as ‘Mama,’ but he managed to keep his cool and met the gaze of the Major. Quirking an eyebrow, he gestured towards the base, saying simply, “Shall we?”

The Major nodded sharply, then turned to the other man, who had climbed atop some cargo crates and was lounging about as though taking a break from a fashion shoot. Theron was rather uncomfortably reminded of Ryshan, who had the tendency to do the same thing, but aside from the fact that they were both gorgeous and male there were no other similarities between the Sith and the exiled pilot. The Sith was also decidedly more attractive than Ryshan – although that might have had to do with Ryshan’s personality as much as physical qualities – and there was a small, petty part of Theron that relished the idea of pointing that fact out to the smuggler, save that he didn’t wish to ever speak to or see the man again.

“My lord,” Major Quinn said, speaking to the other man, “You should accompany us. I ought to take a look at your shoulder.”

“It’s fine, Admiral,” the man – a Sith, judging by the Major’s term of address – said, and Theron blinked. Hadn’t the Wrath referred to her husband by the title of Major? The man met Theron’s gaze, grinning broadly. “I take it there’s a cantina somewhere around here, right? I’ll just self-medicate with whiskey and friendly companionship.” The way he said ‘companionship,’ his voice a low, pleasant rumble, suggested that anyone present – children excluded, of course – was welcome to offer themselves up for the opportunity. When there were no takers the man simply sighed and heaved off the cargo crate, landing with the grace of a large, predatory cat, and stalked off in the direction of the base, no doubt in search of the aforementioned cantina.

Major Quinn shook his head, sighing heavily and with great forbearance. “Lord Razaraje can attend to himself.” He shifted, grimacing briefly, and Theron saw how exhausted the man was, his pale skin gone sallow and great bags under his eyes. “If we might, I would much appreciate being escorted to the infirmary, please.”

Theron nodded quickly and hastened to lead the Major toward the infirmary. Behind them Vector and Miranza were herding the children together with the help of their eldest sibling. Miranza had managed to get the kid in her arms to stop crying although she still carried herself as though she half-expected the baby to explode or start calling down lightning on her head. The oldest girl, the one the boy had called Kessie, was babbling excitedly about how they’d all nearly crashed and died, speaking with the morbid excitement common to the very young, who did not yet understand what it actually meant to die. Caedan and Lana were still in talks with the Sith, who towered over Lana and might even have been an inch or two taller than Caedan. The Commander had pasted his ‘I’m listening’ diplomatic face on, which suggested that in spite of his misgivings he was attempting to follow Lana’s lead when it came to the Wrath. Theron understood Caedan’s point of view – stars, if there was anyone on this planet who had reason to be suspicious of a Sith lord’s motivations, it was Theron – but he understood Lana, too. If the Wrath lived up to her reputation she would be a formidable asset to the Alliance.

Assuming, of course, she was actually willing to work with the Alliance, and wasn’t just there for her own gain.

The walk to the infirmary was slow, the Major initially trying to disguise the fact that in addition to the burns on his face and whatever had caused his arm to be in a sling, he was also limping rather badly. It didn’t take long for him to abandon his efforts to hide the limp, however, although he did refuse Theron’s offers of assistance. Theron couldn’t discern if the refusal came from a place of pride or one of suspicion.

The Alliance did not yet have enough medical staff that they could man the infirmary through all hours of the day and night, and so it was dark and quiet when Theron and Major Quinn arrived, with no patients in attendance. Theron offered to call a medic or doctor – those members of the Alliance with sufficient medical training all took turns being on-call during the hours the infirmary wasn’t staffed – but Quinn waved the suggestion away with his good hand, stating that he didn’t want to be a bother.

“It’s no trouble,” Theron insisted, as the Imperial maneuvered a medical cart over to an empty gurney.

Quinn glanced at him before turning back to his examinations of the available medical equipment, then asked, “Do you have any medical training?”

“Some,” Theron admitted. “Triage, first aid, that sort of thing.” He decided against mentioning that he mostly utilized that training on himself. The Major didn’t need to know exactly how disaster-prone Theron was. That was really more of a third-date discussion.

“I’m a medic,” Quinn said brusquely. “I can talk you through anything I can’t do for myself.”

Theron suspected there was some adage about doctors not treating themselves but decided not to mention that, either. The Major was obviously mobile, limp notwithstanding, and his speech was coherent and pointed; while Theron was by no means an expert on the subject he felt confident that the man’s condition wasn’t life-threatening and that he could, indeed, talk Theron through any procedures he couldn’t perform on himself. And Theron knew his own skills would be up to the task, so long as Major Quinn was capable of providing instruction. If that should change, well, there were doctors they could call, and the base wasn’t so big that it would take long for them to get there. Theron figured he could keep things under control for the time being.

The Major removed his sling, unknotting it and folding the fabric with a care that suggested he was cognizant of its value. Theron suspected the scarf belonged to the Wrath; it looked expensive and the colours would have complemented her dark red skin tone perfectly. After a momentary struggle Quinn slipped out of his jacket, wincing only slightly when that necessitated him pulling his injured arm through the sleeve, and his jacket, too, was neatly folded and place on the nearby table beside the scarf. Underneath he wore only a thin undershirt, and while Theron wasn’t generally in the habit of undressing Imperial officers he knew from seeing Miranza and Vector in their old uniforms that there was supposed to have been a dress shirt between those two layers. He remembered what Lana had said about the Wrath and her family being attacked at home and immediately fleeing to Odessen, and it occurred to him that their flight must have been impulsive indeed in the stiff-necked officer in front of him hadn’t taken the time to dress himself properly.

Of course, his injuries might have prevented him from doing so. Now that the Major was no longer wearing his stiff black-and-grey jacket Theron got an eyeful of livid red burns, deep blue-black bruising and one badly broken left arm. In fact, from what Theron could tell the entire left side of his body was burnt and bruised, and he thought back to what he had seen of the other members of the Wrath’s entourage – and how stark the difference was, between Quinn and the others. Their injuries were old and healing; his, while not new, appeared to have been left largely untreated. Their flight from Rishi would have taken days – why had the Major only received cursory treatment?

“Our kolto supply was severely limited,” Major Quinn said, no doubt seeing the confusion and concern on Theron’s face. He was stiff and tight-lipped as he ran a med-scanner over himself, staring down at the readout with an expression that suggested nothing he saw there was a surprise to him. He glanced up, meeting Theron’s gaze, and set the scanner down carefully on the table, his hand shaking slightly. His voice, when he spoke again, was incredibly soft. “We were attacked, we didn’t have time to stock up on supplies before fleeing. Four injured children and a pregnant woman with blaster burns, and only so many medical supplies to go around. What options did I have?”

“You mean,” Theron said carefully, “that you’ve been flying around for a week without medical treatment?”

“I did what I could,” Quinn said. He sounded slightly indignant as he gestured towards himself with his good hand. “I’ve kept my wounds clean, set and bound the break – with Lord Razaraje’s assistance, of course; I couldn’t do that on my own – but it’s hardly as though I could afford to take it easy while we were fleeing for our lives.”

“Hey.” Theron held up one hand. “I’m not judging you. Well, I mean, I am judging you, but … y’know, favourably. You did what you could.” He consciously echoed the Major’s words, his eyes drawn to the painful-looking burns down the man’s face. _Kriff, he’s gonna fit in perfectly here._ Stiff Imperial with a rod up his ass or not, Major Quinn’s apparent self-sacrificing nature would be right at home with people like Caedan and Vector.

For the most part Theron needed little instruction in treating the Major’s injuries, and after some ineffectual attempts at patching himself up Quinn allowed himself to be directed into lying down on the gurney while Theron did the work. The Imperial was largely silent, holding himself carefully still while Theron cleaned his burns and wrapped them in kolto-infused bandages; there were only a few times when he cursed quietly under his breath – very weak curses, at that, nothing stronger than ‘damn’ or ‘bloody hell’ – but otherwise he was a model patient. Despite his poorly-disguised discomfort Theron got the impression that the other man was just grateful to be off his feet; the exhaustion weighing him down was patently obvious.

“Do you know who attacked you?” Theron asked midway through his treatment. The Major was rapidly beginning to flag and Theron didn’t particularly want him passing out – from pain or from exhaustion – until he’d finished working, just in case it turned out that there _was_ something he needed instructions for.

“No.” Quinn was tight-lipped, though it was difficult to tell whether it was from the pain of his injuries or anger at his family being attacked by unknown assailants. He had closed his eyes, sparing Theron the discomfort of being closely observed in his ministrations. “They were armoured but not in uniform. They attacked in the middle of the night. It was dark. I wasn’t paying attention, I was too focused on the children.” He sounded frustrated, angry with himself for not being more observant while fighting for his life.

“They attacked the _kids?”_

Quinn’s eyes flashed open, vivid blue irises set in stark contrast to bloodshot sclera. He gestured halfheartedly towards the burns. “I got these shielding Faelanna from a grenade. A _grenade,_ Agent Shan. My daughter is _two.”_

Theron’s horror at this revelation was almost enough to overshadow Quinn’s exact phrasing – almost, but not quite. He blinked, cocking his head to one side, and looked up at the Major’s pale face.

“You know who I am,” Theron said carefully. Lana had called him Theron, not Theron Shan or Agent Shan. In fact, he was positive she had been very cautious in identifying him, because for all that ‘Shan’ was a relatively common family name in the Republic, it was next to impossible that a high-ranking Imperial officer wouldn’t recognize it as being the same surname as the former Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. It would have caught Quinn’s attention in the same way that someone named ‘Marr’ or ‘Baras’ would have caught Theron’s: one learned to recognize the names of their enemies, if one hoped to survive in the galaxy.

“I do,” Quinn said, just as carefully. “If Lord Beniko wanted to keep your identity a secret, she should have kept you hidden.” He smiled, a not entirely pleasant expression that didn’t reach his eyes, and added softly, “You have quite a dossier, Technoplague.”

Theron flinched, unable to hide his response. He’d earned the title – if that’s what it was – by killing two different Sith lords and destroying their technological achievements before those achievements could be used to inflict untold pain and suffering across the galaxy. One of the double agents the SIS had embedded within Sith Intelligence had reported the name that then-Darth, now-Empress Acina had bestowed upon him, but Theron had been told that it wasn’t being connected with his actual identity, that the Imperials didn’t actually know who was behind the deaths of Darths Mekhis and Karrid. Of course, it had been a long time since the SIS had shared information with Theron, and it was possible – likely, even – that his dossier had been updated. For all he knew the Empire had a detailed summary of his background and genetic profile by now. It wasn’t as though the Republic had a vested interest in keeping Theron’s identity a secret anymore.

“Yeah, well, I’m a busy guy,” Theron said, aiming for nonchalance. He forced himself to meet Quinn’s gaze again, reminding himself that the man was injured and not a threat, that his children were on Odessen (and currently in Vector and Miranza’s custody), and that there was no reason for Quinn or his wife to make trouble. Unless, of course, the Wrath really was so ruthlessly efficient that she would use her own family as a ruse in order to strike at the Alliance.

Theron found his breath coming short, his heart pounding in his chest. Darth Evorsio was not Darth Jadzira and she was not here to hurt Theron or to take him into her custody. Lana would never have given the Odessen base coordinates to a possible threat, no matter how strong her deference remained for the Empire. Theron was safe. Vector and Miranza were safe. There was no need for Theron to get upset.

Anxiety and trauma were not based in rational thought, and telling himself that neither Major Quinn nor the Emperor’s Wrath were his enemies did nothing to calm Theron’s racing mind.

Quinn struggled to sit up, his good hand curling around Theron’s wrist. Theron flinched again, yanking his hand away with much more force than was necessary so that the effort of freeing himself resulting in him sprawling to the floor. The impact of his ass on the hard tiles was enough to break the spell his impending panic attack had on him, however, and he blinked up at the Major in confusion. Quinn was trying to get up, blue eyes wide with concern, but Theron waved him off. The man didn’t need to hurt himself just because Theron was an idiot who couldn’t keep his own brain under control.

“I’m fine, it’s nothing, I’m fine,” Theron lied, climbing back to his feet. His ass smarted but it was nothing compared to the embarrassment he felt at nearly having a complete breakdown in front of an Imperial officer he’d only just met. And over what – a name? A stupid nickname that no one ever called Theron?

Theron knew, however, that it wasn’t Quinn’s casual use of Empress Acina’s title for Theron that had set him off. It was the realization that the Emperor’s Wrath could actually _be_ ruthless enough to use her family as a shield in order to gain access to the Alliance, and that Theron had no way of protecting himself from her so long as she was on Odessen. Not unless he wanted to hide behind Caedan and Lana, and Theron definitely wanted to avoid that. He wasn’t about to hide behind a Jedi’s robes just because he was afraid of a big bad Sith.

Comprehension seemed to dawn on the Major Quinn, and he sat back, making a great show of setting his hand in his lap, well out of reach of Theron. His gaze was on Theron’s face, watching him closely, and Theron found himself distinctly uncomfortable with the idea that the man could see through him. Theron got the impression that the other man had reached some sort of conclusion and was waging an internal battle over how best to proceed, as though torn between a variety of possible actions and their potential ramifications.

Finally Quinn spoke. “You should know, Agent Shan, that your dossier is not the only place I recognized you from.”

“Oh?” Theron was proud of how calm he sounded, like he wasn’t halfway to crawling out of his skin from sheer nerves.

“Nearly two years ago,” Quinn began, speaking cautiously, “Xaora was sent a link to a holo-feed.” Theron had to remind himself that Xaora was Darth Evorsio’s first name; the Sith lord had too many names and titles. He nodded, and Quinn continued, “That feed was of a live auction to which my wife had been invited to bid on the person of one Agent Theron Shan.”

Theron swallowed and took a few staggering steps towards the nearest chair, dropping gracelessly onto it as his legs gave out. It took him several attempts to ask, “And did she? Bid on me, I mean. Did your wife bid on me?”

“She did.” The Major nodded once, curtly. “She was outbid – by a rather substantial margin, I should add – by one of her rivals. Darth Jadzira.”

“That’s too bad.” Theron’s voice was flat. Too flat. He was finding it difficult to make himself sound normal. His heart had picked up again, sounding loud and heavy in his ears. “I’m sure I would’ve had a great time being her plaything. Almost as much fun as I had with Darth Jadzira.” The name hurt to say, and he ground it out as though he was spitting shards of glass.

Quinn looked at him then, something foreign shifting across his face before his expression settled on pitying. Theron found that he hated it, hated that look on the other man’s face.

“Lord Beniko had contacted my wife,” Quinn said, sounding affronted. “Xaora tried to buy you so that she could _return_ you.”

It took a few seconds for the Major’s words to sink in, and when they did, Theron stared up at the other man, uncomprehending. Why would the Emperor’s Wrath try to do something like that? Why would a Sith lord try to win an auction on a man she had no intention of torturing – especially if Amrielle had invited Darth Evorsio to participate in the first place? So far as Theron knew, Amrielle had specifically targeted her potential buyers, choosing those people she believed would be best suited towards making him suffer.

Of course, Amrielle had invited Darth Occlus to take part in the auction as well and had, according to Miranza, been rebuffed. Perhaps she hadn’t chosen so carefully after all.

“My wife and Lord Beniko are friends, Agent Shan,” Quinn said, and now he was glaring at Theron, no doubt personally offended by this affront on his wife’s honour. As if Theron wouldn’t immediately assume that the Wrath was just as bad as everyone else Amrielle had offered to sell him to. Quinn glanced away, smoothing down the edges of the bandage over his arm as he continued, almost as an after-thought, “And we had read your dossier, as I already said. Lord Beniko’s reports following Rishi and Revan indicated that you were unlikely to submit to interrogation techniques. There was nothing we could have gained by keeping you for ourselves.”

“Oh. _Well.”_ That was more in line with Theron’s understanding of the Sith. He couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Darth Evorsio had wanted to buy him in order to just – what? Hand him back over to Lana and the Alliance? Just like that? _“Here, we found your missing agent. Take better care of him next time.”_ But he could absolutely believe that the Wrath might have originally intended to buy him in order to interrogate him about the Republic, or his mother, or any number of things that Theron could potentially have classified knowledge of, and that she had simply decided against it because Lana’s reports had counter-indicated his likelihood of submission. _Thanks for that, I guess, Lana. Glad to see you remember our time together on Rishi._ That was much more in keeping with what Theron knew of the Sith.

How different would things be now if the Wrath had won Amrielle’s auction? If he had been handed over to her instead of to Darth Jadzira? Even if she had decided to torture him for information – and he could easily imagine her changing her mind, deciding to give it a shot just in case he did spill something potentially useful – he suspected that it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as what Darth Jadzira had done to him.

He’d been tortured before. He could handle it. He hadn’t been able to handle what Jadzira had done. He still wasn’t exactly handling it.

Theron swallowed again. He couldn’t think about this. _That way lies madness._

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked finally. “You’re awfully forthcoming for a guy who’s only just met me. Especially considering, y’know, the whole Imps versus Pubs thing.”

Quinn looked at him, the fingers of his good hand still tracing lightly over his bandages.

“Agent Shan,” he began, then stopped and sighed, rubbing at his tired eyes. He tried again, in a voice thick with emotion, “Days ago my home was invaded and my wife and children were attacked. We have been hunted and fired upon, our ship damaged, our home destroyed. My oldest child is ten, Agent Shan. _Ten._ And he’s a very brave boy, but still, he is _just_ a child, and he has – we have all spent the past week running for our lives. We don’t know who is after us or why. Our only ally has been my wife’s apprentice, and for all that he’s playing it off Lord Razaraje was also injured and, like me, has chosen to forego treatment in order to extend supplies for Xaora and the children. I’m tired, Agent Shan. I’m tired and in pain and I am terrified that the next attack that comes will destroy everything I hold dear, so yes, I am being forthcoming with you because this Alliance is _the only hope I have of keeping my family safe.”_

The Major blinked as though startled by his outburst, adding in a much calmer voice, “I know who you are, Agent Shan, and I know why Lord Beniko set you as my guide. You’re a spy and no doubt your job here is to determine whether or not my wife and I pose a threat to Commander Savarr or to the Alliance. _My_ job, therefore - my _only_ job, so far as I’m concerned - is to do everything in my power to convince you to let us stay. If our survival is contingent upon my being honest with you, then _I will bloody well tell you the truth._ No matter how ugly and painful it might be.”

Theron stood, suddenly finding himself on solid ground again. He knew desperation, knew what it sounded like, and he recognized it in the Major’s voice and saw it on the man’s face. This Imperial was at the end of his rope, and while Theron suspected Caedan was right, that the Wrath hadn’t had any intentions of joining the Alliance until she saw it as necessary, well, it had become necessary, hadn’t it? Theron was no longer an SIS agent or a servant of the Republic, for all that he had spent the majority of his adult life working to serve Republic interests. That they were Imperials did not have to mean that Major Quinn and Darth Evorsio were Theron’s enemies, not if their intentions to join the Alliance were sincere. And if the only reason they wanted in was because it kept their family safe, they were hardly the only people on Odessen who felt that way. There were hundreds of refugees on Odessen whose only interest was in getting away from the Eternal Empire. Protecting the galaxy from Zakuul and Emperor Arcann was what the Alliance was _for_ , and Odessen was a safe haven for anyone and everyone who wanted to be a part of that.

“Lana,” Theron began, because he would be damned if he would call her ‘Lord Beniko,’ “trusted you and your wife enough to give you the coordinates for our base.” Quinn was right: Lana had almost certainly sent Theron to the infirmary in order to keep an eye on the Imperial, but if she had invited the Wrath and her family to Odessen then she had already made up her mind about whether or not they could be trusted with the location. “If your intention is to help us out –”

“It is,” Quinn interjected quickly, a faint flickering of hope in his brilliant blue eyes.

Theron gave the man a small smile and shrugged. If Darth Evorsio had malicious intentions, if she was there to cause trouble - either to the Alliance or to Theron personally - then he would have to trust in his team’s abilities to ferret those motivations out. They were good at that sort of thing. In the meantime Theron was willing to take the Major’s claims at face value. For now.

“All right, Major Quinn,” Theron said, making an effort to let the smile reach his eyes. “Let me be the first to welcome you and your family to the Alliance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Every Day Is a Winding Road" is by Sheryl Crow.
> 
> Observant readers may note that "Xaora" is the name of the Sith Warrior from my fic "Bad Medicine." I just like the name and am reusing it; otherwise, these two characters bear very little resemblance to each other aside from a shared name and a love for Malavai Quinn. The "Immortals" version of Darth Xaora is far less fickle and much more devoted to her husband.
> 
> Side Note: I recognize that for some obscure reason there are people who feel compelled to read SW/Quinn fanfiction and then let the writers know exactly how much they hate that pairing, how abusive/messed-up that relationship is, and so on and so forth. I've already had the "pleasure" of that commentary, and I'll thank you to save yourselves the effort of having to write it and me the emotional turmoil of having to read it. If you don't like this pairing, relax, this story is still about Theron/Vector/Miranza; Quinn/Xaora are merely background characters because I happen to enjoy writing about a variety of different people. This is my fanfiction, I'm not being paid to write it, and nobody is forcing you to read it. Thank you.


	54. Fire Water Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and the Wrath's apprentice pay a visit to Rishi.

_**Odessen, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

“Tell me the truth: on a scale of one to ten, how pissed off is the Wrath about me going instead of Miranza?”

Theron glanced over from his pre-flight check to the man sitting beside him in the co-pilot’s seat. Lord Evraun Razaraje, apprentice to the Emperor’s Wrath, stared back at him, an amused expression on his face. The question had been foremost in Theron’s mind from the moment Caedan and Lana had asked him to take over for Miranza.

_“I know the Dark Lord would much prefer it be an Imperial operative accompanying Lord Razaraje, but under the circumstances …”_ Lana had been apologetic; Caedan less so. Miranza was sick, fighting off an infection she should have been exposed to as a child but hadn’t, and time was of the essence. In all likelihood the Wrath’s residence on Rishi had already been investigated and cleared out – probably by Imperial forces – but Darth Evorsio was hopeful that some evidence might still remain that would provide clues on who attacked her and her family. Miranza was supposed to have been the spy traveling to Rishi with Lord _“call me Evraun”_ Razaraje, but neither Vector nor Theron was willing to let her out of bed much less off the base.

“Ten being livid and one being ‘meh, whatever’ about it?” Theron nodded at Evraun’s clarification, and the Sith grinned, teeth a brilliant white against the deep russet of his skin. He leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat and set his feet up onto the console, mindful of the various buttons and switches there. When Theron had first met the man he’d mistook his long dark hair for a ponytail, but in the better lighting of the cockpit Theron could see that Evraun’s hair was done up in elaborate dreadlocks and then pulled back to keep it all out of his face. Some of the ‘locs had engraved silver beads at the ends; others had thick red string threaded through them. “Eh, about a five, maybe. Xaora won’t give a shit. If she thinks you’re a threat she’ll just kill you.”

“Oh, _that’s_ encouraging,” Theron said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. The idea of a Sith lord gunning for him filled him with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he’d had entirely too many unpleasant experiences with angry and vengeful Sith. On the other, he’d killed an awful lot of Sith in his time, and frankly the novelty had rather worn off. If Darth Evorsio thought him an easy target she would be very much mistaken. Not that he actually thought she would come after him, not after the discussion he had had with Major Quinn. The Wrath wanted to be on Odessen as badly as her husband did, and Theron was relatively confident that her killing him would be a pretty big strike against her.

Evraun snorted, still grinning. “She won’t care. It’s the Admiral who’ll get his panties in a bunch over it. Imagine, the Imperial secrets you could discover!”

“The Admiral?” Theron queried. “You mean Quinn? I thought he was a major.”

“He is.” Evraun chuckled. “It’s a nickname some dead Moff gave him: Admiral Malcontent. I call him that when I want to piss him off.”

Theron considered the Sith’s words and the fact that he was about to spend a week trapped in close proximity with the man. The _Mercurial_ was down for routine maintenance – he was pretty sure it was just an excuse for Tora to get her hands on the spaceship; she’d been salivating at the chance to investigate Imperial tech ever since he and Vector had arrived on Odessen – and so he and Evraun were using a larger shuttle, similar to the one he’d flown to Ziost years ago, to get themselves to Rishi. It didn’t leave him with a lot of room if he needed to get away from the other man, and maybe pissing off a Sith lord wasn’t a great idea. (Not that that had stopped Theron in the past.) Then again, Theron suspected Lana had suggested him for this assignment just to see how well he could get along with the Wrath’s apprentice and as a way to determine the man’s suitability for teamwork within the Alliance. If Evraun Razaraje turned out to be a colossal dick then now was the time to find out.

“How does Darth Evorsio feel about you picking on her husband?” Theron asked carefully, keeping a watch on Evraun out of the corner of his eyes. If he made a move to his lightsaber Theron was ready to drop him, but he didn’t think he could block a Force-choke and if Evraun had any other tricks up his heavily-armoured sleeves then Theron was likely screwed.

The Sith shrugged, apparently unoffended. “I don’t do it in front of her, mostly. And Quinn’s a self-righteous asshat, but he’s not the sort to tell tales out of school.”

“Ah.” Theron nodded, then pressed on, “So you pick on him when his wife’s not around to support him. You’re a Sith lord and he’s a non-Force-sensitive Imperial officer who can’t fight back. Doesn’t that kind of make you a bully?”

Evraun blinked, clearly startled by Theron’s question, and to Theron’s great surprise and (relief) delight the man did not immediately start trying to Force-choke him or slam him into the instrument panel. After a moment of amazed silence the Sith suddenly started to laugh, a deep, rich chuckle that filled the cockpit of the shuttle.

“Okay, that’s fair,” he said, returning the nod. “Yeah, I guess sometimes I am. I picked up a lot of bad habits on Korriban and bullying’s one of them. I’m working through it. It’s a work in progress. Quinn, though – believe me, the man can fight back. Don’t let that whole _dutiful career soldier_ thing he’s got going on fool you. The Wrath didn’t marry him just for his pretty face.”

Theron filed that comment away for future reference – Quinn was attractive, if you were into pale, uptight and starched – and set his hands to the throttle, beginning takeoff. Evraun settled back to sit properly in his seat, his booted feet on the floor once more. Theron noticed he didn’t bother to put his seatbelt on, but the man was an adult, he could do what he wanted. If he wanted to go through the windshield in the event of a crash, well, who was Theron to judge? Not that he was planning to crash the shuttle or anything. That had only happened a couple of times.

“So,” Evraun began, as the shuttle lifted up into the air, “Your girl’s gonna be okay?”

Theron nodded tightly, grimacing. Endorian pox was going around the Odessen base – in all likelihood it had been the Wrath’s children who had brought the contagion with them from Rishi; the words _“fucking petri dishes”_ had crossed Evraun’s lips when referring to them – and while it was a relatively minor (if annoying) illness when contracted in childhood, it was much more severe in adults. It was highly contagious but limited to the human, Mirialan and Zabrak species (as well as half-blooded species, as evidenced by the Wrath’s four half-Pureblood/half-human children, who were all sick). Most of the adults on Odessen had already had the pox as children (in some cultures there were “Endorian pox parties,” where parents would deliberately expose their offspring to an infected child in order to get the illness over and done with when it was less likely to be dangerous), but Miranza, as it turned out, was one of the unfortunate few who hadn’t been exposed as a child. It was ironic to Theron that she had been raised in a facility with dozens of other children and hadn’t contracted the disease, whereas _he_ had spent his childhood more or less isolated and _had._ Granted, Theron’s exposure to Endorian pox had occurred shortly upon his arrival on Tython, when his immune system had already been worn down by days of malnourishment and hardship. In fact, his being sick had prompted the Jedi to let him stay there an extra two weeks until he was fully recovered; if he hadn’t caught the pox he would have been turfed a lot sooner. (The memory stood out for him: it was the first time Theron could remember someone coddling him when he was sick. Master Zho had been kind and loving, in his own way, but he’d never been particularly good around a sick or injured child.) In all likelihood he’d been exposed at the same time as Caedan and Oriana – as it turned out, all three of them had been on Tython at the same time, and if Theron had proven Force-sensitive he would have been creche-mates with the two of them. Instead he was Force-blind and the Jedi had sent him away, but not before he was fully recovered from both deprivation and the Endorian pox.

Miranza, having never been exposed to the pox as a child, was getting to discover the _lovely_ range of symptoms that resulted in getting the illness as an adult. She’d spent the first day following her diagnosis trapped in the infirmary with the other handful of grown-ups who’d contracted the disease, after which she’d been released into Vector’s custody. (Vector, like Theron, had had the pox when he was little, but chances were good his Joiner physiology would have prevented him acquiring it as an adult.) She was sick and miserable and hated being confined, but Oriana – whose own children were likewise infected – and the doctors were in agreement that she would make a full recovery. They were also very much in agreement that she not _go anywhere or do anything._

Hence Theron’s little space-trip with Evraun, and his resulting concern at pissing off a pair of highly-ranked (and dangerous, let’s not forget that part) Imperials.

“Yeah,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. Getting the Endorian pox as an adult was bad, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t worse than whatever Killik flu they’d picked up from Vector, and the three of them had survived _that._ (Theron chose not to think the word ‘barely.’ This wasn’t the same. At _all.)_ At least this time around Miranza had gotten medical treatment right away and there were doctors and a Jedi Force-healer to help her recover. But she _was_ sick (and miserable and grumpy and _incredibly _itchy) and Theron had hated leaving her, and it was impossible to keep that worry and guilt out of his voice and off his face. Dredging up another smile for the Sith lord beside him he asserted, “Yeah, she’ll be fine. She’s tough.”__

__“Yeah,” Evraun agreed, smiling back. His smile was dazzling, like a carnival busker drawing in a crowd, all professional showmanship. “Did you know they still tell stories about her back at the academy? ‘The Ghost of the Empire.’ Your girl’s a fucking legend, Shan.”_ _

__Theron’s smile grew a bit broader. It had been a long, _long_ time since he’d heard anyone refer to Miranza by that title, but it carried the same weight as ‘Technoplague’ did for him. _Legend. Huh._ He’d never thought of them in that light, but it was almost certainly true, no matter how you looked at it. The Imperial spies who had turned the son of the Jedi Grandmaster. The Republic SIS agent who had convinced the Imperial boogeyman and the Joiner who’d single-handedly brokered the Killik-Imperial treaty to defect to the Alliance. _Fucking legends.__ _

__“So, we’re gonna be stuck here together for a week,” Evraun said, grinning broadly once he saw Theron’s response. Theron raised one eyebrow, half-turning in his seat to face the other man. “We should get to know each other. Tell me everything there is to know about Theron Shan.”_ _

____

O o O o O

Habitual suspicion kept Theron from sharing much about himself, but by the time their shuttle landed on Rishi he had been regaled with the details of Evraun Razaraje’s entire life story because Evraun Razaraje apparently did not give a damn what Theron knew about him so long as it made for a good tale. Edited for content, probably (and likely edited for suitability – Evraun had very little to say about his time on Korriban, for example, which suggested that it had been kriffing _horrible),_ but entertaining enough to distract Theron from worrying about Miranza or what the Wrath and the Major might have to say about a former SIS agent rifling through their personal belongings.

By the time the two of them arrived on Rishi Theron knew that Evraun was an only child and heir to a powerful Sith legacy. He knew that the other man was Darth Evorsio’s apprentice because her other apprentice, a woman by the name of Jaesa Willsaam, had recruited him – because Jaesa had been looking for Light-Sided Sith. And Evraun had allowed himself to be recruited because he _was_ actually pretty Light-Sided and because he stood zero chance of surviving against _actual_ Sith without a powerful patron who wouldn’t destroy him the instant his leanings became known. He knew that Evraun refused to speak of his time on Korriban, that his parents had both died when he was a child, and that his favourite colour was green and his favourite animal was the tooka and his favourite food was shuura-flavoured ice cream. He didn’t like Sith opera, he _did_ like Gamorrean Baka rock, and he couldn’t dance to save his life but that didn’t stop him from trying. By the time he was done talking Theron knew more about Evraun than he did about Lana or Caedan or Koth, and he’d known all of them much longer. Evraun had the ability to make himself seem like an open book while still holding back a significant number of details, and under different circumstances Theron might have seriously considered recruiting the man to the SIS. As it was Evraun’s storytelling was engaging and lighthearted in spite of what at times ought to have been more serious subject matter, and it felt like Theron had known him for years. And if Evraun was at all annoyed that Theron didn’t feel inclined to share in turn he made no mention of it.

The Wrath’s estate was on its own private island north of the Rishi village Theron had stayed at shortly after being rescued from the Revanites. Theron and Evraun had discussed the best place to land – he’d suggested either Raider’s Cove where he had met up with Lana, Miranza and Vector after the deaths of Darth Arkous and Colonel Darok or the landing pad outside the Rishi village – before Evraun gave him the coordinates for the landing site near the estate itself. It would save them from having to hire a ferry over to the Wrath’s island, but Theron was concerned that landing directly on the island itself would draw too much attention. Evraun simply pointed out that their arrival on Rishi would have been noticed either way, so they might as well save themselves the trouble and just head directly for the estate.

Theron had to set the shuttle down a little south of the landing pad; the duracrete platform was already taken up by another spaceship – this one little more than a heap of scrap. Evraun informed him that it was the Wrath’s ship – or had been, rather, before her enemies had bombed it to prevent her and her family from escaping the island. The only reason they’d gotten away at all was because Evraun had been coming for an unscheduled visit. The Sith lord was remarkably humble about his own involvement in the Wrath’s escape, saying simply “I was there at the right time.”

Theron didn’t know what he had been expecting – the last time he’d been on Rishi he hadn’t exactly been there to admire the architecture, but he remembered the native Rishii lived in thatched huts and he somehow couldn’t picture the Wrath or family doing the same – but the Sith lord’s estate was surprisingly bright and charming, if one was willing to overlook the half that had been burnt to the ground. The walls had been an off-white adobe, now partially blackened with smoke and soot, and there had been a _lot_ of windows. Evraun, his jaw set, pointed to the charred timbers and cracked tiles and explained that that was where the attack had started: in the wing of the estate that had been the family’s bedrooms and the children’s playroom.

_“Fuck”_ had been the only thing Theron could say to that.

Evraun took him in through the wide-open front doors, lightsaber glowing red in his hand as he led the way. Although the raid had begun in the east wing there had clearly been multiple prongs of assault, as the doors had been forced open and the main lobby showed signs of violence. Theron was unsurprised to discover that the bodies had all been cleared away – both Evraun and Major Quinn had indicated that they had managed to kill some of their enemies, so that meant their attackers had cleaned up after themselves. It was frustrating because it made it harder to determine who those enemies had been, but it wasn’t a shock.

What was a shock – to Theron, at least – was how remarkably cozy and homey the estate was. Not that he’d been expecting everything to be in shades of red and black, all jagged edges and Imperial cogs everywhere, but he had been picturing something a little more … Sith. Instead in the midst of the rubble Theron saw clear signs that this had been a home filled with love, where the children had been allowed to be underfoot, and where the adults had sought and found refuge in their family. There were toys, now covered in soot and half-trampled under debris, scattered everywhere and a variety of framed pictures on every wall. Most of the shots were candid, predominantly featuring the Wrath and her children, with a few pictures of Quinn thrown in for good measure; some were more formal and staged-looking, the family dressed in their best, eyes toward the holocam. Based on the sheer volume of pictures of Darth Evorsio and the children Theron suspected Quinn to be the photographer, and even through the ashes and grime he could tell that the man had a talent for capturing his subjects.

“And there you have it, the Empire’s deep dark secret,” Evraun said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the portraits. Theron gave him a curious look and he continued, “The Wrath of the Emperor has a surprisingly normal and happy domestic life. The shame. The Dark Council will never live it down. I’ll probably have to execute you and then kill myself just to protect her secrets.”

Theron gave him a look before he realized the other man was joking. Still, it _was_ rather surprising to discover how remarkably normal Darth Evorsio and Major Quinn were - at least with regards to their family.

“Stars,” Evraun said, looking around at the mess. He ran a hand over his locs, his eyes wide as he took in the destruction around them. “I don’t even know where to start.” His gaze fell on one of the pictures, a candid shot of a younger version of the Wrath holding a tiny infant. Rymar, Theron suspected: the eldest Evorsio-Quinn child. Evraun swallowed and said, “Xaora’s gonna want these.”

That had been one of the private instructions Lana had given Theron, after she and Caedan had asked him to accompany Lord Razaraje: gather up as much of the family’s personal possessions as could be salvaged. They had had to make a quick getaway, abandoning everything they owned in order to escape. The Alliance had supplies for refugees – clothing, toiletries, toys – but nothing would replace the things the family had lost. At first Theron had bristled against the command, thinking it a waste of time to go rummaging through a Sith lord’s possessions to make sure he brought back every tchotchke and memento he could find, but now, seeing this? Theron had never been one for material possessions himself, but he could appreciate the comfort the Wrath and her family would take in having something of theirs brought back to Odessen. Even if everything smelled of smoke and blaster fire.

“We’ll go room by room,” Theron agreed, as Evraun slipped one of the frames down from the wall and began removing the pictures. “We can investigate and collect stuff at the same time. Split up or stay together?” Splitting up would be faster.

“Stay together,” Evraun said firmly. He gave Theron a look that Theron found difficult to read, but there was an intensity to it that he couldn’t argue against.

“Okay,” Theron said, shrugging. “Together it is.”

O o O o O

The bedrooms were the worst, Theron decided.

He and Evraun had started off in the main lobby and worked their way through the estate. There wasn’t a single area that hadn’t been trashed, whether during the assault itself or as some sort of retribution afterwards once the family had escaped. Furniture had been overturned, family heirlooms and knickknacks smashed, walls and floors damaged and entire rooms rendered completely inaccessible due to debris or destruction. The smoke damage was extensive and a fine layer of soot covered everything. Nothing was left untouched.

The first bedroom had been the master bedroom, the one Quinn and the Wrath likely shared. Someone had slashed the mattress on the bed and shot the family portraits full of holes; when Theron opened the closet doors to see if he could find some spare clothing for the two adults he discovered everything inside burnt to ashes in what had been an act of deliberate malice. Evraun said, quietly, that Xaora and Quinn had woken up before their attackers could reach their bedroom, and consequently everything that had happened there had occurred after the family had escaped. The damage was petty vengeance, nothing more.

The attack had started in the playroom. There were double doors overlooking what had once been a bright, sunny patio; those doors were blown off their hinges, blackened bits of transparisteel scattered across the carpeted floor. The assailants had gone through the playroom, destroying everything in their wake, and then from there had moved on to the children’s bedrooms.

In one room there was an overturned crib with scorch marks on the floor. In the back of his mind Theron could hear Quinn’s quietly angry voice: _“I got these shielding Faelanna from a grenade. A_ grenade, _Agent Shan. My daughter is_ two.” He could see a faint outline of what had likely been Quinn’s body, blocking his daughter from the worst of the blast. The crib had taken the brunt of the damage and was little more than a blackened metal husk.

“Who _does_ this?” Theron asked, too-loud in the close confines of the bedroom. He swallowed a follow-up question – more of a statement, really, about the kind of monsters who could go after innocent children. Because the thing of it was, Theron had met those kinds of monsters before and this wanton destruction shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to him. Darth Mekhis, Darth Karrid, Samar, Amrielle, Darth Jadzira: he could imagine any of them doing something like this, and at this point in his life he should be utterly incapable of being shocked by it. And yet there he was, sick with rage and disgust and horror. A small part of him was grateful that he wasn’t completely desensitized to things like this. A larger part was surprised.

“Nobody good,” Evraun answered quietly. His voice was rough, as though he was holding back tears, and when Theron looked over at him he saw that that was the case. Of course Evraun _knew_ these people; the Wrath and her family weren’t just abstract concepts to the Sith lord in the way that they were to Theron who had scarcely met them, but a happily-married couple and their four children who had opened up their home and lives to him. By his own admission Evraun would have been dead a dozen times over if Xaora hadn’t intervened and taken him under her wing as her apprentice. Evraun had been a part of all of this and now it was ruined and lying blackened and burnt at their feet.

The frustrating thing was, that was the only answer Theron could come up with: nobody good. There was simply too much damage and too much time had passed for either of them to be able to find any evidence as to who had attacked the estate. Boot-treads were long gone, swept away by rain and wind and the tracks of animals. There were no bodies left behind – save for some ruined droids that Evraun was fairly certain had belonged to the Wrath – and not even any bloodstains or detritus they might have used for identification purposes. Nothing they could work with. Nothing they could use. If it weren’t for the fact that they had been able to gather some of the family’s personal possessions Theron would have considered the entire trip a huge, depressing waste of time.

“We should go,” Theron said, voice soft and gentle as he placed one hand on Evraun’s arm in a gesture meant to comfort. The Sith lord’s armour was cool and solid beneath his palm, the moulded plasteel scuffed with use. “Is there anywhere else we should look first?”

“No, I –” Evraun’s head jerked up at the same time that Theron heard a faint creaking sound that came from somewhere close by.

Evraun’s red lightsaber flashed and he reached out to grab Theron by the shoulder, spinning both of them around so that Evraun was between Theron and the source of the noise. Sparks flew as blaster bolts connected with the spinning blade of the ‘saber as Evraun turned to face their now-visible assailant. Theron had a glimpse of a shadowy figure in matte-black armour tucked up on a second-storey balcony, blaster rifle leveled in his direction. Evraun blocked another shot with his lightsaber before shoving Theron through the open doorway. Theron felt a hand at his belt and was about to protest the intrusion when a shimmering red field enveloped him: Evraun’s shield generator, now latched onto Theron’s belt instead of his own. A sudden flurry of blaster bolts came at the two of them, half deflected by Evraun’s ‘saber, the other half bouncing off of Theron’s shield.

“Move your ass, Shan!” the Sith lord barked, giving Theron another push.

Theron staggered through the doorway, narrowly avoiding tripping over a pile of charred furniture. He had both blasters out and quickly activated the perimeter fields on his implants, scanning the area for enemies. To his immense surprise he immediately registered at least seven heat signatures within his vicinity, not including himself or Evraun.

He fired off a shot in the direction of the nearest signature and had the satisfaction of hearing a surprised shout of pain before Evraun was man-handling him through the door. The Sith lord kept in close, one hand on Theron’s back to direct him while the other kept his lightsaber up to ward off more blaster fire. Theron would have complained about the other man treating him like some kind of delicate flower if it weren’t for the fact that he was reasonably confident Evraun and his shield generator were the only reason Theron hadn’t been perforated with blaster-bolts.

“How many?” Evraun grunted, face a few inches from Theron’s. They were pressed close together, the shield generator powerful enough to cover both of them provided they were in range. “Any idea?”

“Seven,” Theron replied. He looked back towards the balcony and found that their assailant – and his rifle – were no longer visible. Stealth generators. It had to be. “At least. I hit one but I don’t know if he’s down.”

Evraun cursed, a strange look on his face. Up close the striking tattoos that marked his cheeks, chin and forehead were vibrant, practically glowing; the sweat on his skin made the dark red shimmer, like fresh blood. “We need to get back to the shuttle.”

A horrifying thought occurred to Theron. “If they haven’t scuttled it.”

“Fuck. Don’t even fucking suggest that.” Evraun jerked one hand in the direction of the hallway to their left, back towards the main lobby. His lightsaber flashed again, deflecting a bolt back towards its owner, and there was a startled cry followed by a dull thud as a body – now visible – came crashing from the balcony down to what Theron suspected might once have been a piano but was now just a charred pile of wood and metal. The Sith lord gave Theron a quick, feral smile before gesturing again towards the hallway. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Theron turned and fired off one last shot before taking off down the hallway, Evraun close at his heels. He made it as far as the kitchen – recognizable by the half-melted refrigeration unit and what used to be a stove – when a figure materialized directly in front of them, stealth field falling away as a blaster rifle went off in Theron’s face.

There was no way the shot could miss.

A harsh shove sent Theron sprawling on his hands and knees.

The shot missed. From somewhere above and behind him Evraun grunted.

There was a sudden flurry of movement and then Evraun was gone, _leaping_ past Theron to land on top of the man with the blaster rifle. The ground shook when Evraun landed, a cloud of soot rising up into the air to obscure him. When the soot resettled there was a body at Evraun’s feet and then the Sith lord was racing back to haul Theron upright again.

“Are you hit? Did he hit you?” Evraun gasped, gloved hands patting Theron down desperately as he searched for evidence of damage. He seemed vaguely panicked, as though a ‘yes’ from Theron would result in him flipping out. “Are you hurt?”

Theron didn’t have time to answer as more blaster fire rained down on them both. The shield was beginning to flicker out as it ran out of juice; it could only take a few more hits before it shut down entirely and needed to recharge.

Evraun pushed Theron toward the door, the red blade in his hand spinning through a series of motions that Theron recognized from the defensive Soresu form, meant to ward against ranged attacks. Theron had learned the form himself at Master Ngani Zho’s knee, but since he tended to be the one _making_ the ranged attacks he didn’t get many opportunities to practice it outside of his morning training routine. Evraun, on the other hand, was clearly a master practitioner, his lightsaber an extension of himself as he moved to block shots that would have taken them both out. The Sith lord kept Theron close, covering him while Theron took pot-shots at the enemy. It didn’t have the natural fluidity of fighting alongside Vector and Miranza – the three of them had been together and fought together for so long that their styles had melded and conformed to one another – but there was a similarity between the way Vector handled his electrostaff and Evraun utilized his lightsaber that Theron was immediately able to acclimate to.

Pain flared along Theron’s hip, the sudden burn making him stumble before he caught himself. He glanced down to see the singed line cutting through his trousers and realized he’d been tagged. It burned but it wasn’t enough to bring him down and he pushed onward, across the courtyard where there used to be trees and a fountain and now there was only rubble and ruin. Much to his immense relief the shuttle remained undamaged, and he raced for the landing site, ducking bolts and maneuvering around potholes cut into the ground by what might have been cannon fire.

He spent a frantic few seconds fighting with the keypad to gain access to the shuttle, but eventually the green light flashed and the gangway opened to admit the two of them. Evraun seemed momentarily torn between letting Theron get on the ship first – and risking there being an assailant already on board – or leaving him exposed to their enemies while he searched for threats. In the end Theron pushed his way past the Sith, ducking in under the other man’s arm and swinging around toward the cockpit.

Movement, out of the corner of his eye. Theron didn’t even hesitate, lashing out with his fist to catch his startled opponent – only just materialized from out of stealth – in the jaw. The man went down, hard, and Evraun brought his lightsaber around before Theron caught his arm to stop him.

“We need him alive,” he warned the Sith lord, releasing him and stepping over the unconscious man and into the cockpit. “Don’t kill him.”

_“Fine.”_ Evraun spat the word out like a curse and grabbed the man under both armpits, hauling him to the rear of the shuttle. Theron tuned him out, his attention focused on the shuttle controls. There was no time for a pre-flight check; they needed to be in the air, _now._

Instinct made him duck as a line of fire split across the viewscreen. The transparisteel was designed to hold up under blaster fire – stars, it was designed to hold up in the vacuum of _space_ – but Theron couldn’t help but wince at the bolts striking the glass. He sped through the start-up routine, years of experience in flying spacecraft guiding the process along, making it nearly automatic.

“You strapped in back there?” he called, hands over the throttle. He didn’t wait for an answer, just jerked the shuttle up and into the air. Evraun all but fell into the co-pilot’s seat, grabbing at his seatbelt and buckling himself in before he’d barely landed. The Sith lord was breathing heavily, a fresh line of scoring over the breastplate of his armour.

Theron got the shuttle up, focusing on getting vertical and as far above and away from the estate – and their enemies, who were still firing on them from below – as possible. He winced at the steady _ping-ping-ping_ of blaster bolts against the ship’s plating, knowing the shuttle could take more damage than that but that they didn’t have enough shielding to stand up against a long-term assault. The ship hadn’t been designed for combat – it was a shuttle, for fuck’s sake, meant to get in and out of an area quickly – and there were only so many hits they could take.

“You grabbed the stuff, right?” Theron asked, feeling a spike of relief when he saw Evraun nodding out of the corner of his eye. Evraun had been the one carrying the rucksack filled with Evorsio-Quinn family keepsakes and other odds and ends, and it would have been a shitty feeling to have left that behind.

Evraun held the bag up, inspecting it closely. There were fresh singe marks in places, suggesting the rucksack had taken a few hits from the blasters, but it was otherwise undamaged. A careful inspection of the contents revealed that nothing inside had been struck, which was arguably the first bit of good news they’d had all day. The Sith lord held up a stuffed animal – a wampa, maybe? – and gave it a once-over.

“I really need for this to belong to Quinn,” he said, shoving the toy back inside the bag. “Like, you have no idea how badly I need for Admiral Malcontent to have a stuffy.”

“Almost as badly as I needed to hear a Sith lord refer to a stuffed animal as a ‘stuffy,’” Theron replied. Post-fight adrenaline left him feeling a bit hysterical, ready to launch back into battle or burst into laughter (or tears) at the drop of a hat. Technically speaking the fight wasn’t over yet – they still had to get away from Rishi and back to Odessen – but with the shuttle in the air there was relatively little Theron needed to do save for make minor course adjustments until they were out of orbit.

“Funny,” Evraun said. He lowered the rucksack gently to the floor, its contents making quiet clinking noises as they bumped together. “I was just gonna –” His head jerked to the side, and Theron got a fleeting glimpse of his dismayed expression before he was looking in the opposite direction.

Evraun’s arm flew up across Theron’s chest. Theron opened his mouth, the words “What the fuck?” on the tip of his tongue as he felt himself pinned back against his seat.

Fire erupted across the windshield. The noise was deafening. The shuttle rocked and then went into freefall, the throttle jerking loose from Theron’s hands.

The last thing Theron saw before the ocean rose up to greet them was Evraun’s shield generator flaring to life, the staticky red field flickering into place around Theron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fire Water Burn (The Roof Is On Fire)" is by the Bloodhound Gang. It actually ended up being more appropriate than I had originally planned. :D
> 
> Yeah, Endorian pox is totally chicken pox.


	55. Hemorrhage (In My Hands)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up in strange places with no idea how you got there is never a good time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for vomiting. It's not something that bothers me so I don't normally think to tag for it, but apparently emetophobia is a thing that I should be more cautious about. I don't think I'm particularly graphic about it, however.

_**Rishi (Unknown Location), Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Theron came to facedown in the sand.

He groaned, and the noise was far too loud, it made him feel as though his skull was about to crack and shatter into a million tiny shards. His ears were ringing – his left more so than his right – and that, coupled with what he dimly realized was the sound of waves rushing gently upon the shore behind him, was also too loud and it made him groan again. The sun was beating down on him from high overhead and it was both too hot and too bright, and there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hurt.

He opened his eyes and struggled to lift his head. Even that small amount of movement was too much. Nausea slammed into him and he barely managed to turn his head to one side before throwing up in the sand. The vomit was mostly saltwater, which was a small comfort since he ended up face-planting in the middle of it. Disgust rippled through him but it was a distant thing, far surpassed by pain and confusion. Evidently throwing up once was like opening the floodgates and it became a struggle to keep the remaining water and bile down, but it was a struggle Theron intended to win because throwing up hurt too much and he wasn’t sure he could move.

When he finally thought he had his stomach under control he managed to get one hand under him – the other one didn’t seem to want to cooperate – and pushed himself over onto his side. For a moment the world spun alarmingly around him, blue skies and fluffy white clouds and green palm fronds seeming to do a frantic twirl overhead. He had to close his eyes again; when he opened them the world had stopped spinning, or at least it had slowed, and he found himself gazing up at some palm trees. The sight was vaguely familiar but it took him entirely too long to recognize the sandy beachscape of Rishi.

He was on Rishi. He was hurt.

Sudden icy terror swept through him. He was on Rishi and he was hurt, and that meant only one thing: the Revanites had him. He’d thought … No, he’d escaped, hadn’t he? He dimly remembered Miranza coming to his rescue, and something about … Lana? Had she helped him or betrayed him? He couldn’t remember. Almost as soon as the thought was in his head it disappeared again and he was left with the vague sensation of nameless dread. He was afraid but he couldn’t remember why.

_Okay,_ he told himself, _think._ Thinking was hard, his thoughts and memories slipping between his fingers like grains of sand on the beach. _Okay, what are the facts?_

Fact #1: He was on Rishi. He was pretty sure of that. He’d been on Rishi before, was familiar with the landscape even if he didn’t recognize his immediate surroundings. Was this the ‘before,’ the first time he’d been on Rishi? Or had he come back to the planet for some reason? And if it was the ‘before’ time, where were Lana and Miranza and Jakarro? Had the Revanites captured them, too? That thought sent panic slamming into him and he forced himself to focus again.

Okay. Back to facts.

Fact #2: He was hurt. Badly. There was a persistent pounding in his head that seemed to radiate outwards from his temple and all down the left side of his face, and his jaw and neck were both throbbing but to two entirely different drumbeats. The discordant tempos made his nausea worse, off-set by the steady drum of waves on the shore. His chest hurt, but that might be from the vomiting and coughing, or it might be something else entirely and at the moment he had no way of knowing. There was something terribly wrong with his left arm and his right hip felt like it was on fire. He knew the Revanites had tortured him but he couldn’t equate those memories of torture with the pain he currently felt, so that meant they had continued to hurt him after he’d passed out and –

_No, I got away. I escaped the Revanites. This isn’t then._ He fought to get a lid on the panic, but it was a near-thing.

Okay, then, Fact #3: He had no idea _when_ it was or how he’d come to be lying injured on a sandy beach on Rishi.

And that was pretty much it, those were all the facts Theron could string together – and even that much effort left him feeling dizzy and exhausted.

Another surge of nausea hit him and Theron tried to lock it down but the more he tried to keep himself from vomiting the more he felt like he _needed_ to. His mouth filled with saliva as he pushed himself up on one arm – his right, the one that was still playing along while his left felt like a dead weight attached to his shoulder – and just as he tried to get to his feet or at least up onto his hand and knees so he wouldn’t just be puking all over himself _(again)_ he felt strong hands helping him the rest of the way.

With a considerable amount of assistance Theron was able to hunch over – whereupon he promptly threw up all over a pair of water-stained black leatheris boots.

“Well, that about puts the cherry on my shit sundae of a day,” a dry Imperial voice muttered from somewhere overhead. Theron’s instinct was to look up at the speaker but he found his head and neck wouldn’t cooperate; even the effort of trying to raise his head made the pounding at his temple worsen and another wave of nausea rippled through him.

The speaker patted Theron’s back encouragingly before adding, “No, no, just finish up. Sadly this isn’t the first time someone’s puked on my boots.”

Theron’s cheeks flushed but he didn’t have much control over whether or not he followed the speaker’s advice: within seconds the last of his stomach contents splashed out over the sand (and yeah, a little bit more got on the boots again, much to Theron’s embarrassment and dismay). He stayed hunched over, retching and heaving, his good hand pressed to his stomach as if that would somehow make it hurt less. (It didn’t.) When he finally finished vomiting the speaker helped him shift around until he was sitting on his ass in the sand, his injured left arm cradled against his chest in his right hand.

An attractive dark-skinned man with vivid red facial tattoos came and hunkered down in front of Theron, staring intently into his face. Theron tried to follow the man’s eyes but found his own vision blurring and doubling and ended up closing his own eyes instead.

“Nope, none of that.” The man – Theron knew he recognized him, but the name wouldn’t come to him; it was right there, on the tip of his tongue – gently cupped Theron’s chin in his hand and said, “Open your eyes again, Starshine. I need to see your pupils.”

Theron reluctantly opened his eyes, immediately focusing his gaze on the index finger held up directly in front of his face. The man drew his finger back and forth, wiggling it enticingly, but Theron groaned and shook his head – then immediately hissed in pain as that small amount of movement made him feel like his skull would split open like an egg.

The finger disappeared, and Theron found himself staring into a pair of worried brown eyes. _Nice eyes,_ he thought. Very soft. Very kind.

“Question and answer time,” the man said. “Pay attention as this exam will be worth half your final grade.”

Theron blinked at him, unable to comprehend his statement. The man sighed, then started over: “I’m going to ask you some questions and I would like you to answer them for me, please and thank you. Simple, one-word answers are fine. If you don’t know the answer, please just tell me. I’m not going to be upset with you. Okay?”

Theron started to nod, reconsidered, and said simply, “Yeah. Okay.”

“Excellent.” The man beamed at him, a blinding flash of white. He had a nice smile, Theron thought. His teeth were perfect and there were laugh lines around the corners of his mouth; Theron suspected he made a habit of smiling. “Okay, first question, handsome: What’s your name?”

_Is this an interrogation?_ Theron wondered, fighting the urge to look around, to reaffirm that he was in fact sitting on his ass on a beach and not strapped to a table in the middle of a Revanite compound. Or … or worse. His mind told him there _had_ been worse since the Revanites, but he couldn’t remember the details. More specifically, he _knew_ there had been worse, but he shied away from the details, knowing instinctively that he didn’t want to think about it. Because in that moment when he could only remember the torture he had experienced at the hands of the Revanites, the idea that there could possibly be something _worse_ than what he had gone through seemed incomprehensible, and he already felt himself on the verge of shattering. There was an edge of panic to Theron’s disorganized thoughts, a need to get up and run that conflicted with the certainty that he wouldn’t be able to do so no matter how hard he tried.

“Theron,” Theron said, before the man’s expression could grow any more worried. He had taken too long to answer, trying to decide whether this was supposed to be an interrogation or if this man was simply a concerned friend. That nagging sense of familiarity was what convinced him the man was his friend, or at least an ally. “Theron Shan.”

“Brilliant!” The worry disappeared somewhat, the bright smile returning. The man gestured towards himself. “And do you know my name?”

Theron struggled to grasp it, _knew_ that he knew it. He knew this man. They were … friends? They’d fought together, he knew that much: together, back to back, and not against each other.

“Evraun!” he blurted out, the name suddenly unlocking itself from his scrambled memory banks. Then he frowned, blinking rapidly. “I’m sorry … I can’t … I can’t remember your last name.” It was there, though; Theron knew that he ought to have known it. Like Evraun’s first name, his surname lingered on the tip of his tongue.

The man – Evraun – frowned briefly before saying softly, “That’s all right, it’s a mouthful. Razaraje. My name is Evraun Razaraje. We’re friends.” He looked away, turning towards the waves lapping against the shore, then glanced back at Theron. “Do you know where we are?”

Once again Theron had to fight against the urge to look around, knowing the movement was only going to cause him pain. He wanted to look down at his hand, to see how bad the damage was, but even that much movement would be painful. His neck felt tight and hot, and the throbbing in his head was relentless and distracting. It was hard to keep his eyes on Evraun, hard to stay focused. He just wanted to curl up on the beach and take a little nap.

“I think,” he began slowly, puzzling it out, “we’re on Rishi.” Then he _did_ turn his head, because the landscape was familiar in the sense that he had spent time on Rishi before and aside from Pirate’s Cove or the Rishii villages there was little to differentiate between one area and the next. It was all beaches and copses of palm trees and deep blue oceans. And sure enough, as he turned his face away from the water he saw a stand of palms, fronds swaying in the gentle breeze, and none of it was anywhere he recognized. He felt reasonably confident that although he was on Rishi, he was someplace he had not been before, some island or cove he hadn’t visited while investigating the Revanites.

“I don’t know where, though,” Theron finally admitted, feeling strangely disappointed in himself.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Evraun shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “I’m not really sure where we are, either. Next question: do you know what day it is?”

Panic swelled within Theron when he realized that no, he actually had no idea about the date. Even the year was a little fuzzy to him. He could guess, from scattered fragments of memories, that some time had passed since he had last been on Rishi, and in the background of his mind there was the shape of his relationship with Vector and Miranza and the years they had spent together. He knew that Darth Marr was dead, that the Sith Emperor Vitiate was actually (or also) the Zakuulan Emperor Valkorion, and that the entire galaxy was at war. But he couldn’t remember if that war had started yesterday or ten years ago, and that was a terrifying discovery. It wasn’t so much that the information was gone, but rather that he couldn’t quite grasp the way linear time worked, and the effort of trying to string his memories along in chronological order made his headache even worse.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Evraun said, when Theron’s silence dragged on and it became obvious that he didn’t have an immediate answer. “It’s not important. Do you remember what happened? How we got here?”

Theron tried for levity, desperate to make the situation less tense: “Beach party?” He made sure to smile – even if it was a gruesome parody of a smile with too many teeth and not nearly enough humour – so that Evraun would know he was joking. When Evraun didn’t return the smile Theron sighed and said simply, “No. At first I thought I was back with the Revanites, getting tortured, and then –” At Evraun’s frown he stopped, aware of what he’d just said. He hadn’t intended to mention the torture. He wasn’t sure how much Evraun knew about him. He knew Evraun was Sith, he could remember that much, but he was having a hard time sorting out the relationship between them. _We’re friends,_ Evraun had said, and Theron sensed that much was true. There was, however, a rather large gap between ‘friends’ and ‘the last time I was on this planet some crazy cultists turned me into their personal punching bag for a few days.’ It wasn’t like he was in the habit of sharing that particular story with everyone he met, after all. His time on Rishi was not something to be shared over drinks and sabacc.

Evraun’s hand curled around Theron’s uninjured wrist, fingers squeezing lightly. “You’re not. You’re not back there, you’re not being tortured, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Well, anything more. Well. _Fuck._ I kinda cocked that one up, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry?” Theron didn’t know if it was simply too many words spoken too quickly – he was having a hard time following the narrative – or if he was missing vital information, but Evraun’s word-soup didn’t make any sense to him. “You … what?”

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” Evraun admitted, releasing Theron’s wrist. “Kinda doing a shit job of that.”

“You’re supposed to … be taking care of … _me?”_ That didn’t sound right.

Evraun grinned suddenly. The expression did interesting things to his facial tattoos, stretching the lines into new patterns that somehow seemed less ominous. “I don’t know if you can remember her right now, but there’s a rather terrifying blonde who threatened to vivisect me if I didn’t bring you home in one piece.”

_Miranza,_ Theron instantly thought, and a sudden rush of warmth curled through him as he pictured her face in his mind. True, it could have been Lana who had threatened Evraun, but that didn’t seem like the Sith lord’s style, whereas he could absolutely imagine his partner going toe to toe with someone as obviously formidable as Evraun Razaraje in order to make sure Theron made it home safe. Threatening Evraun would be such a Miranza thing to do.

“Barely five feet tall and sick as a dog and she still nearly made me wet my pants,” Evraun continued cheerfully, seeing Theron’s obvious pleasure at the mention of Miranza.

“I remember her,” Theron said, smiling faintly. “But … sick? That was … no, when she got sick, Vector and I were sick first.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Starshine,” Evraun said, shrugging. “She’s sick – well, she’s probably almost better now, how long does Endorian pox even last? – and you and Vector aren’t. But hey, one last question and then I’ll leave you alone, okay?”

Theron had to fight against another surge of panic, this time at the thought of being left alone. It took his addled brain a few seconds to realize that Evraun didn’t mean it in the literal sense, but just that he would – likely – stop asking questions once Theron answered this next one. The panic – sharp and cold in spite of the hot sun – made his chest hurt more.

“Okay,” he said, realizing Evraun was waiting for his acknowledgement.

“Hey, it’s all right, I’m not going anywhere,” Evraun said, giving Theron’s knee an awkward pat. “So, last question: Can you tell me what hurts?”

“Is ‘everything’ a viable answer?”

“Viable: yes. Helpful: no, not really,” Evraun replied with a chuckle. “I don’t want you to move around a lot, but … is it all right if I touch you? I just want to figure out what’s hurt.”

For some reason that Theron couldn’t immediately place the idea of Evraun – of _anyone_ – putting his hands on him made Theron feel intensely uncomfortable. There was a memory there, or possibly many memories, of being touched in ways that had hurt, ways that had left him feeling shattered. Terror, dark and unknown, fluttered on the edges of Theron’s unconsciousness, threatening to press in close, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Whatever he was feeling must have shown on his face, because Evraun immediately backed off, both hands held up as if to demonstrate that he was unarmed.

“Hey,” he said again, trying to catch Theron’s eye. “I’m not gonna hurt you. If something makes you uncomfortable, just say so, all right? Maybe something simple, yeah? Can I look at your hand?”

Without thinking Theron held out his right hand, but Evraun frowned faintly and shook his head, indicating Theron’s injured left hand. Theron blinked, suddenly noticing that he wasn’t wearing his jacket and that he couldn’t feel the weight of his blasters at his hips. He was unarmed and unarmoured, and that, coupled with the fact that he was also quite obviously injured, made his terror and sense of vulnerability spike alarmingly. He flinched back, trying to yank his hand out of Evraun’s reach, but the movement caused agony to flare up throughout his body and black spots danced across his eyes as dizziness and nausea threatened to overwhelm him.

“Shit!” Evraun hissed, as Theron once more doubled over and proceeded to dry-heave into the sand. “Shit shit shit!”

“I think my arm’s broken,” Theron mumbled, wiping his mouth with his good hand while the limb in question sat useless and throbbing in his lap. “I don’t know what happened. Where’s my jacket? Where’s my … Where’s …” Then, his voice sounding whiny and immature even to his own ears and yet utterly incapable of stopping himself, he moaned, “I want to go home!”

“Aw, fuck, Starshine,” Evraun murmured, looking ready to burst into tears alongside Theron. He scooted a bit closer, careful to telegraph his actions before taking them, and gently stroked the fingers of one hand over the right side of Theron’s face, away from where it hurt. His hand was warm and a little damp, and Theron instinctively shifted enough to press his cheek into the other man’s palm. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Something about the man’s tone – or maybe it was the concerned look on his face – made Theron’s terror ease off a little, and when Evraun cautiously gathered him up into his arms and onto his lap Theron relaxed into the embrace. The Sith was careful to avoid jostling Theron too much but the pain was unavoidable, even that small amount of movement enough to jar Theron’s arm and reignite the cacophonous pounding in his head. Theron let Evraun settle him with the uninjured side of his face resting on Evraun’s shoulder – like Theron, the Sith was unarmoured, and the coarse fabric of his saltwater-stained shirt scratched against his skin – and for all that Theron and Evraun were roughly the same height Theron was conscious of the other man’s strength, how easily he lifted and held Theron, like he weighed next to nothing.

The drumming in his head was getting worse, but if he kept his eyes closed and his cheek pressed against Evraun’s shoulder Theron thought he could maintain control over his rebellious stomach, at least. He was tired of throwing up. He was tired, period.

“Jus’ gonna take a nap,” he slurred, speaking into Evraun’s shirt. His voice still carried that annoying whiny note and he had no clue how to make it go away. He might have been cradled like a child but there was no reason to go on sounding like a spoiled two-year-old.

“What?” Evraun jerked, upper body twisting in a way that suggested he was trying to look down at Theron. “No, Theron, I need you to stay awake. I need …”

Whatever else Evraun needed was lost as Theron slipped back into unconsciousness. It felt an awful lot like tumbling back under the waves, and maybe that explained the sudden roaring sound that rose up to meet him.

O o O o O

_  
**Location Unknown, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion**  
_

Vector opened his eyes to complete darkness.

For one long, disorienting moment he struggled to process what he was seeing – or rather, what he _wasn’t_ seeing. Everything was as dark as the spaces between the stars. He gradually became aware of a few things: the huff of his own breath against his face, something cold and hard beneath his body, and the uncomfortable sensation of his arms forced and held tightly behind his back. With those facts in place he developed a greater understanding of the position he was in. He was curled up on his side, his arms restrained behind him, and there was something covering his head so that he couldn’t see.

He didn’t know where he was but he felt confident in saying that he was no longer on Odessen. In fact he suspected, from the sounds and sensations around him, that he might be on a ship.

He processed that information silently, struggling to remember what had happened. His mind felt slow and fuzzy, and there was a strange taste on the back of his tongue that suggested he had been drugged. He wondered if his assailant had known to account for his heightened stamina as a Joiner, and if there was anyone nearby who would be expecting him to wake up now. He closed his eyes, dismissing his sight as temporarily useless, and listened intently. With the bag over his head he couldn’t rely upon his sense of smell - all he could smell was his own breath and the fact that it had been a long time since he’d last brushed his teeth - but he still had superhuman hearing. He could hear the ship around him, engines working overtime, rear thrusters firing, the steady thrumming of a hyperdrive in good repair. At a much closer range was a strange humming sound, like a shield generator or security force-field. He couldn’t hear anyone nearby but the buzz-hum right by his ears might easily drown out the rustle of clothing as someone moved and breathed.

Vector wasn’t panicking yet. He wasn’t especially fond of restraints or having a bag over his head, but so far as he could determine he was uninjured, with no lingering side effects from whatever he’d been dosed with. He could work with that.

He spent a few minutes assessing his condition, confirming his lack of injuries. He had a very minor headache but he suspected it and the overwhelming thirst he was experiencing were both due to his having been drugged. His shoulders ached from his arms being restrained and sleeping on the cold, hard ground did his back and joints no favours, but he couldn’t detect any actual damage: no bumps or bruises, nothing to indicate he had been rendered unconscious through violence. He was more or less in one piece, and the headache and mental fog would surely pass soon enough thanks to his enhanced stamina.

Once he was certain both of his relative health and of the fact that he was alone, wherever he was, Vector began rubbing his face against the floor, trying to drag the bag off of his head. It took a few tries – he kept expecting someone to come along and order him to stop, but no one did – but he managed to scrape his cheek against the grilled floorplates until the bag was pulled up and away. He kept his eyes closed, the sudden flood of bright light making his eyes water; after a few seconds he cautiously opened his eyelids and had to blink back tears until he was no longer blinded.

He was in some kind of cage, in what looked like the cargo hold of a ship. He wasn’t familiar with the ship design – Theron, flyboy that he was, would have been able to take one look at the hold and immediately identify the ship’s make and model within a matter of seconds, but Vector had no such expertise. At best he guessed that he found himself aboard some kind of light patrol craft, the sort of spaceship that needed a bare-bones crew to pilot and operate. The cargo hold was relatively small, Vector’s cage set off to the right-hand side and a set of metal steps leading up to a second story. The force-field around the cage cast everything in a red light and made it difficult to see much beyond its walls, but he had the sense of open space and suspected the cargo hold was largely empty.

The sight of the cargo hold confirmed that he was on a ship, but Vector had already surmised as much from the familiar sounds of the hyperdrive and engines, and from the faint shuddering he could feel all around him. Still, it was good to have his suspicions confirmed, as much as he would have preferred to have been somewhere stationary.

Sitting up proved to be an awkward endeavour that relied mostly upon his core muscles to get the job done without the use of his hands. There was a brief moment of dizziness – no doubt from some combination of drugs and having been prone for too long – and then he was upright, shifting around to stretch his legs out in front of him. The floorplates were cold through the thin trousers he was wearing and he could feel every single line and indentation of the grills beneath him. The cage was wide enough that he could fully stretch himself out and tall enough that he could probably stand all the way up without brushing the ceiling, which made for reasonably roomy accommodations. There was no 'fresher that he could see, however, nor had anyone thought to leave him food or water; hopefully that meant his sojourn would be a brief one.

Vector stretched and flexed, testing the restraints that bound him. They were strong durasteel bands that were too sturdy for him to snap but he suspected that if he was willing to lose a little skin off his hands – and possibly dislocate a thumb or two – he could probably slip them off. Whoever had captured and imprisoned him had clearly taken his superior strength and stamina into consideration but had neglected to reflect on the impact his relationship with Miranza and Theron would have on him. Vector Hyllus, Imperial diplomat and attaché, had little reason to know how to escape from restraints, but Vector Hyllus, husband to a pair of spies? _That_ man could weasel out of ten different kinds of restraints and could break or pick another dozen. Such a shame; he’d once been such a fine, upstanding young man, and now look what his lovers had done to him … They’d turned him into a proper rapscallion.

Thinking of his partners naturally led to an immediate flood of concern over both of them before he remembered that Theron was safe and sound with Lord Razaraje on Rishi and Miranza had been locked in meetings with Lana and Darth Evorsio, attempting to make up for lost time following her convalescence. And thinking about Miranza meeting with Lana sparked a memory in Vector as he remembered what he suspected were his last few minutes of consciousness.

He had been at the base, going over a list of requisitions with Hylo Visz, Vette and Gault Rennow. (The reunion between Darth Evorsio and her long-lost Twi’lek companion had been a delightful surprise. The Wrath hadn’t known Vette had been on Odessen – indeed, Vector hadn’t realized the cheerful little Twi’lek even knew the former assassin of the Emperor – and they had spent a considerable amount of time catching up.) After that meeting had ended – admittedly, the ending had been preceded by a sampling of some brandy Gault had managed to procure from sources best left to the imagination – Vector had left in search of the Wrath’s husband, intending to get an updated list of medical supplies from the Major. He’d been met en route by a young man with a thick Mantellian accent, who had referred to Vector by name and told him that ‘Miss Beniko’ had requested Vector’s presence out on the dockyards. Between the accent and the terms of address – Imperials would have called Lana ‘Lord Beniko,’ but most Republic citizens balked at using such titles – Vector had guessed the young man to be a recent Republic refugee, one whose superiors had roped him into playing messenger. Vector had gone out to the dockyards in search of Lana, expecting perhaps to run into his wife along the way and then to be updated on the status of Theron and Lord Razaraje’s mission, but instead –

Nothing. He could remember nothing beyond stepping out onto the bridge leading to the landing pads. That must have been where he had been captured, although he had no memory of what had actually transpired. Did that mean the young man had been a part of his ambush, or just a hapless innocent sent to lure him in? Was the young man his captor? Was the young man a prisoner, same as Vector? He had no way of knowing.

Wherever he was now, he was alone. Miranza and Theron had not been taken with him. They had not been with him when he had been taken. They were safe. And if they were safe, then they would come to rescue him – assuming, of course, that Vector could not figure out a way to rescue himself first. He already knew he could slip his restraints. He simply needed to be outside his cage and off this ship before he could do so. There was no point in risking damage to his hands if the only thing that would happen would be that he would be unrestrained while trapped inside a force-field-protected cage. That accomplished nothing save to give away how easily he could free himself.

There was a loud bang, as of metal striking metal, that came from somewhere ahead and above. The noise made Vector startle, and he made himself sit calmly, arms behind his back, his shoulders squared. He heard footsteps, slow and measured, and then saw someone heading down the steps into the cargo hold. He recognized that masculine silhouette but it wasn’t until the man was standing directly in front of his cage that Vector got a good look at him.

It was at that point that Vector began to realize how much danger he was in.

Ryshan Esselby stared down at him, lips peeled back in a gruesome parody of a smile – but that wasn’t what troubled Vector. No, what troubled Vector – profoundly, on a deeply instinctual level – was the fact that Ryshan’s normally dirty-blond hair had gone a pale, silvery white and his green eyes were now pure silver. And there, as if to sell the transformation home, coiled around his bared arms were a set of deep-red serpentine markings that were almost identical to the ones Miranza had borne.

“Hello, freak,” Ryshan said, completely and utterly without a single trace of irony.

On second thought, it seemed like now might be the _perfect_ time for a little judicious panicking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" is by Fuel. No actual hemorrhaging takes place (although Theron is definitely _not okay_ ); I just happen to like the song and couldn't think of what that fit better.
> 
> If you're wondering what the heck's going on here and did you miss a chapter or something, no - I had some Vector-related fluff written to provide exposition as to how he ended up where he was, but it just wasn't working so I decided to dump him _in media res_ because it felt more dramatic. Surprise! There's plot! :D Remember how I said this story would be low on cliffhangers, and then I laughed and laughed and laughed because clearly I was lying to myself and everyone? Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, here, have yet another cliffhanger because I'm a goblin.
> 
> On the plus side Miranza is probably safe back on Odessen. Probably. (And about to be _super_ upset.)
> 
> Also: Theron Concussion Count +1.


	56. Beat Me Clever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vector renews his acquaintance with Ryshan Esselby - and Lord Inzharra Kallig, otherwise known as Darth Occlus.

_**Unknown Space, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

If Vector had had any doubts that Ryshan Esselby hated him, those doubts were completely erased the first time the pilot brought him food.

Vector had sat himself down cross-legged in the centre of his cage, as far away from the humming force-field as he could manage. With his arms restrained behind his back it was impossible to sit properly with his hands resting on his thighs, but he did the best he could, adopting as close to a meditative posture as possible. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, searching for that peaceful place he had discovered upon his Joining. Meditation was a regular facet of his life as a Joiner: it enabled him to renew and rejuvenate himself, let him organize and compartmentalize his thoughts and experiences, and, provided he was close enough to Alderaan – which, regrettably, had not been the case for several years – allowed him to contact the Killik Hive. When he’d first been Joined his tether to the Hive had been short in spite of his unique independence as Dawn Herald; it had only been after several years of travelling with Miranza that he’d learned to extend his reach beyond Alderaan. Now he felt confident that if he were traveling anywhere within the Core Worlds he might have a hope of reaching the Oroboro Nest, and he knew with a certainty that if there were any other Killiks around he would be able to contact them. Alas he was the only Killik aboard Ryshan Esselby’s spacecraft, and the Nest was much too far away for him to reach. His meditation, therefore, was undertaken purely for the solace it brought him.

That comfort was abruptly disrupted by the sound of booted feet on the metal steps outside his cage. Vector ceased his humming – an automatic reflex he hadn’t even noticed himself begin – and opened his eyes to see Ryshan approaching the cage, a tray carried between both hands.

“Hello again, freak,” Ryshan said. ‘Freak’ or some other variation on that theme had been Ryshan’s form of address for Vector since the Joiner had first awakened on board the ship; the man had yet to refer to Vector by his given name, although Vector knew for a fact that Ryshan knew it – even if he frequently pretended to forget. “Brought you dinner.”

The force-field was lowered. For a brief moment Vector weighed his chances at taking Ryshan down while the cage was open, but he dismissed the idea quickly. For one, he had no clue where they were or what kind of ship they were on; even if he could take Ryshan out there was no guarantee Vector could pilot himself to safety. (Had Theron been present he would have had better odds; his lover could fly anything, it seemed.) For another, Vector was fairly confident that Ryshan was not alone aboard the ship, although Ryshan was the only person who interacted with him. He’d heard soft snippets of conversation and movement aboard the vessel, enough to make him suspect there were at least two other people on board with him and Ryshan, possibly more. The ship wasn’t large enough to host more than five or six comfortably – Vector did not include himself in that assessment, as his own quarters were decidedly less than comfortable – but five or six against one were not good odds. And finally, while Vector was reasonably certain he could have handled Ryshan in a fight before, now that the man had apparently undergone the same process Miranza had been put through Vector was less confident of his chances against him. Although he and Miranza had never sparred while she’d been under the effects of the possession he had seen her in combat enough times to know that he wouldn’t have stood a chance against _her._ It would be safest to assume that Ryshan was similarly enhanced. Independently any of those factors might not have been enough to convince Vector to stay his hand, but collectively he knew when he was outmatched, and he knew when to bide his time.

He could see Ryshan watching him, clearly waiting for Vector to act, but when the Joiner simply remained seated he moved in closer and set the tray down on the floor in front of Vector’s crossed legs. The tray contained a shallow bowl filled with what looked like gruel and an open canteen of what was most likely water. There were no utensils, and with Vector’s hands bound behind his back and Ryshan making no effort to free him it was patently obvious how Vector was expected to feed himself. If Ryshan was waiting to see Vector balk at the idea of eating directly from the bowl like some kind of animal he was in for disappointment: Vector was no more troubled by that treatment than he was by Ryshan’s continued use of ‘freak’ or ‘bug.’

But as Vector leaned forward to dip his face into the bowl of gruel he caught sight of something glinting along the thick, sludge-y surface and realized that while Ryshan no doubt took great pleasure in reducing Vector to an animal that wasn’t the only means the pilot had of getting enjoyment out of feeding the Joiner.

There, scattered over the surface of the gruel, were tiny shards of glass. Had it not been for the reflection of the force-field’s glow sparkling off the minuscule pieces Vector would not even have noticed the shards until it was too late.

He hesitated, frowning at the glinting glass, then drew himself back to an upright position. Ryshan was grinning, broad and malicious. When Vector made no further effort to feed himself the pilot simply shrugged and took a step back, turning the force-field back on.

“Ah, not hungry?” Ryshan asked, voice filled with mockery. “Too bad, it’s all you’re getting today.”

And with that the pilot turned and headed back up the stairs, his boots making heavy clunking sounds with each step.

That was the first day.

On the second day the food contained grit, dust and whatever other detritus had likely been swept up off the floor of the spaceship. On the third Vector couldn’t immediately see anything wrong with the food but from the expression on Ryshan’s face – gleeful and cruel in equal measure – he decided against taking his chances and thought it safest to assume Ryshan had found some more discreet means of contaminating it. Upon closer inspection Vector detected the distinctive scent of urine and knew he’d reached the correct conclusion. The fourth day saw more ground-up glass and on the fifth there were actual _maggots_ crawling around in the gruel, which Ryshan naturally found hilarious: _“Bugs for a bug!”_ On the sixth day Ryshan didn’t even turn the force-field off; instead he simply stood in front of the cage and tipped the bowl over onto the floor, and Vector had watched what was likely uncontaminated gruel spilling out over the floorplates, out of reach. Sadly if it hadn’t been for the force-field Vector might have considered eating the spilled gruel; he was certainly hungry enough.

It was troublesome but not yet life-threatening. Vector knew, both from his survival training prior to his first diplomatic assignment as well as from the collected experiences of the Killik Hive, that he could last more than a month without food and close to two weeks without water. The timeline was shorter with regular humans, but Vector’s enhanced stamina ensured he could withstand the effects of starvation and dehydration better and longer than a human could. It would not be pleasant, however, and even a week without food and water had left him feeling weak and sickly.

It was safe to say that Ryshan hated Vector. That was fine, so far as Vector was concerned: the feeling was most assuredly mutual. Still, there was something inherently discomforting about being in the custody of a man who made no bones about letting Vector know how badly he wanted to kill Vector, and how he wanted that death to be slow and painful.

The irony was that what Ryshan hated Vector for were not things Vector had actually done. The fate Vector had promised him, if he interfered with Theron again – dismissed from Hylo Visz’s smuggling ring, his ship stricken from the base’s docking and repairs registries, his career in tatters and himself exiled from Odessen entirely – had been enacted by _Theron,_ not Vector. The fact that Theron had had the good sense to follow through on the very same threats Vector had made was simply due to Theron being intelligent enough to know exactly what would hurt Ryshan worst. Vector had promised the ruin of Ryshan’s career as a smuggler, but Theron had been the one to turn that promise into reality – and Ryshan, naturally, blamed Vector for his downfall.

Ryshan Esselby was not the sort of man to recognize his own part in his ruination, but that came as no surprise to Vector.

Ryshan blamed Vector, and – unfortunately enough for Vector – it was Vector who was in his custody. That Vector was not to be harmed or killed was likely the only reason the Joiner remained uninjured, the tampering of his food the only means the pilot had of acting out against him. Even the shards of ground glass – which could prove fatal if consumed – were obvious enough that Vector noticed them before eating the contaminated gruel. He wondered what would have happened to Ryshan if he had eaten the food, but his curiosity was not so great that he was willing to risk damage to himself just to find out.

After a week Ryshan’s ship docked aboard a larger vessel and Vector was taken from his cage – arms still restrained behind his back and a set of chains restricting his leg movement – to his new accommodations. Once again he debated the relative merits of attempting escape, but he could hear the steady thrum of heavy engines and the floor moved beneath his feet with the thudding vibrations of a star destroyer in space, and if he had been outmatched when it had just been Ryshan and his unknown accomplices then the odds were even less in his favour aboard what was most likely Darth Occlus’s personal vessel. When a team of soldiers clad in crisp Imperial uniforms came to escort Vector from Ryshan’s ship his suspicions were confirmed: he was in Occlus’s custody, aboard an Imperial star destroyer, and his chances of escape had just dropped to roughly _zero._

As the soldiers drew in close enough for Vector to discern their auras he realized how much worse the situation was: every single one of them was in some way contaminated with the same black miasmic blight that marred Ryshan’s aura. He hadn’t seen it on Miranza – surely if he had he would have known sooner how desperately she needed help – but the contamination fairly oozed and dripped from Ryshan and these Imperial-liveried soldiers. It was a staining of the soul and it made Vector far more sick at heart than the sight of maggots in his food or the derisive nicknames Ryshan threw his way. Darth Occlus had taken loyal servants of the Empire and turned them into something monstrous, and there was no Master Zarasa or Lana Beniko or Senya Tirall here to free them.

Vector was escorted from Ryshan’s ship out to the docking bay of the star destroyer and then down a narrow corridor. If he had thought about trying to make a run for it – and yes, the thought crossed his mind but not seriously enough to lead into action – there were armed soldiers on all sides, weapons at the ready to make him reconsider such actions. Ryshan kept pace with Vector and every so often he would push or shove the Joiner to make him stumble, the chains around his ankles bringing him up short. He managed to avoid falling but it was a close thing, and Vector found that, more than anything, was the behaviour that angered him. Ryshan was a spoiled child acting out, a sadistic brat who wanted to pull the wings off a butterfly to watch it squirm – and Vector was the butterfly in question.

It made Vector wonder how much of this sadistic nature was Ryshan, and how much was influenced by whatever Darth Occlus had done to him. Vector had always known Ryshan to be a spoiled, self-indulgent hedonist with little to no concept of the thoughts and feelings of others, but surely Theron wouldn’t have dallied with a man who was so intrinsically monstrous, so inherently cruel and malicious? The idea that Theron might have cared for this man made Vector ill, and the only way he could cope with it was to believe that the possession had somehow brought out the worst in someone who was already a terrible person.

Vector’s new prison was a proper brig deep within the heart of the star destroyer. As he stood outside the cell waiting for the force-field to be disengaged so that he could enter one of the soldiers came forward and removed his restraints. Vector took his time bringing his arms forward; he could feel the muscles in his shoulders and back protesting the movement after being so long restrained. He rubbed the marks around his wrists – faint lines of bruising where the cuffs had dug in – and stretched surreptitiously, testing his new freedom. Then the force-field was temporarily deactivated and he was made to enter the cell. The guard handed him a flask of what proved to be water and motioned for Vector to go and sit down on the long bench at the back of the wall. Vector did as he was told, taking a cautious sniff of the flask before sipping at the contents. He was desperately thirsty – he hadn’t wanted to chance the water Ryshan had brought being contaminated much as the food had been – but kept himself from gulping it down, knowing he would only make himself sick by doing so. He wondered if, now that he was on the star destroyer and out of Ryshan’s sole custody, he would now be permitted actual food again. He could go longer without food and water than the average human, but he had little interest in discovering the limitations of his Joiner physiology - and the longer he went without sustenance the less likely he would be able to affect his own escape, or to fight back should it prove necessary. In all likelihood the restriction of food and water had been calculated to weaken him as much as to provide Ryshan with some source of entertainment: a starving captive was a docile captive.

The force-field was reactivated and after a brief, whispered conversation between their leader and Ryshan the soldiers departed, leaving Vector alone with Ryshan. With the force-field active between them Vector found himself feeling less threatened by the pilot’s presence, but the malevolent gleam in the other man’s strange silver eyes told him he was far from safe.

Before Ryshan could say whatever was on his mind there was a quiet chirp and the pilot frowned, entire body going stiff and tense. After a moment’s hesitation he drew a holocomm from his pocket and activated it, and a small blue holographic image appeared in the comm’s base. The image fizzled and faded for a few seconds before solidifying into the familiar visage of Darth Occlus. The tiny Miralukan – made even tinier by the hologram – wore her customary mask and armour, and although her eyes were hidden Vector could see that she was scowling at Ryshan through the comm.

_“My officer informed me that you have successfully retrieved the Joiner?”_ Darth Occlus’s voice was curt and surprisingly sweet, but there was an underlying note of malice that Vector could easily discern – and judging by Ryshan’s tense body language, the pilot recognized it as well.

“Yes, Master,” Ryshan replied, and Vector felt a faint chill at the term of address. Miranza had referred to Darth Occlus by the same title, and there was a grudging anger in Ryshan’s voice that Vector recognized from hearing it in Miranza’s. Neither one wanted to refer to Darth Occlus as their ‘master’ and yet clearly, she was – or in Miranza’s case, had been.

Ryshan tilted the comm in Vector’s direction, showing off his prize. “As you commanded, alive and uninjured.”

_Not for lack of interest on your part, we’re certain,_ Vector thought, the chill growing and rippling down his spine as he felt the weight of the Sith lord’s gaze upon him. He wondered what she could see through the Force, and how he might appear to her, given that those of the Miralukan species did not possess vision in the traditional sense. He searched his mind for any record of Miralukan Joiners, but came up short. If Miralukans had been Joined to the Killiks, they had not been a part of the Oroboro Nest, nor had Vector known of them. It was an academic interest, at best, but it sparked his curiosity.

_“And the others?”_

Ryshan stiffened, turning the comm away so that he faced it directly. He was scowling – but there was a faint trembling in his hands that Vector could not have failed to notice.

“Theron was off-world,” the pilot ground out, voice filled with anger and what sounded suspiciously like petulance to Vector’s well-trained ears. He was like a child who had been denied his prize – and who expected to be punished for the loss at the same time. “And the bitch was sick, I couldn’t get –”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut off with a startled gasp as Ryshan dropped the comm to the ground and clasped both hands around his neck. It took Vector a moment to realize the other man was choking, that Darth Occlus was _literally_ choking him through the Force. Vector recalled that Darth Marr had been able to do that, had indeed done so to Miranza when she had refused to bring Theron before the Dark Council years ago. Darth Marr had been an incredibly powerful lord of the Sith - did that mean that Darth Occlus was equally powerful? More powerful? Ryshan choked and gasped and sputtered, hands grasping futilely for the unseen pressure against his neck, his face going red and his eyes bulging as he desperately tried to suck air into his lungs. Then, after a few seconds, Occlus released him and he fell forward onto his hands and knees, breathing in deep, painful gasps.

_“My_ Ghost,” Darth Occlus said deliberately, voice hard and cold, _“was supposed to be accompanying you.”_ The comm had landed right-side up on the ground and her image hovered above it, her expression one of quiet fury. _“What good is a hound who can’t play fetch?”_

“I’m sorry, Master!” Ryshan choked out. He scrabbled to pick up the comm and stand, and the trembling Vector had noticed earlier had grown considerably worse. He was terrified, Vector realized, although whether it was of Darth Occlus in particular or because he had seemingly failed her – or perhaps a combination of both – Vector couldn’t be certain. The notion should have provided some small measure of satisfaction for Vector - that somehow, at least, Ryshan was getting his just deserts - but it was cold comfort. Ryshan was terrified of Darth Occlus - and he was handing Vector over to the woman, for unknown but no doubt terrible reasons. The pilot gestured with one shaking hand towards Vector in his cell. “You can use the freak as bait. You _know_ they’ll come looking for him.”

Yes, they would, Vector knew. He knew, with the wholehearted faith of a man desperately in love, that the moment Miranza and Theron realized he was missing they would tear the galaxy apart in order to find him. He didn’t want them anywhere near Darth Occlus _or_ Ryshan, not even at the expense of his own life. They would come for him - and Darth Occlus knew that as well. Darth Occlus, with her army of possessed soldiers, her freakishly mutated beasts, and her pet hound who wanted nothing more than vengeance upon all three of them.

_“Bring my pet’s husband to Dromund Kaas,”_ Darth Occlus commanded, imperious and regal even through the staticky lines of the holocomm. _“I’m eager to get started. And if my Ghost and the Grandmaster’s son should happen to find you before you reach the planet, remember: I want them alive._ All _of them, Hound.”_

“Yes, Master.” Ryshan ground his teeth together as he ended the call, tucking the comm back in his pocket before turning back to Vector. His smile was back in place but it was brittle and tight and didn’t reach his eyes. “You hear that, freak? Dromund Kaas. You’re in for a real treat. Do you have any idea what my Master has in store for you?”

“We can imagine,” Vector said, managing to keep his voice level. His limbs twitched with the need to move, to get away from his cell and Ryshan Esselby and whatever darkness lay within the man. Nothing good would come of this trip to Dromund Kaas: he knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“No.” Ryshan laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “You really can’t.” The sound of the brig doors opening caught his attention and he turned, expression brightening. “But you’re about to get an idea.”

Two soldiers came into Vector’s field of vision, dragging between them a tall, slender human male clad in filthy, bloodied rags. As the man came closer Vector felt a sudden jolt as he realized that no, this wasn’t a human man – or rather, this man was about as human as Vector.

The man lifted his head, and the empty, glazed eyes that stared back at Vector were the fathomless black eyes of a Joiner.

The force-field was deactivated again and the man was tossed inside the cell, where he fell to the floor in a limp, boneless heap. Vector quickly moved to his side, letting out a startled cry when his hands came away bloody. His ragged clothes were in such poor shape that it was possible to see the injuries underneath, and what Vector saw made his heart pound fast and hard within his chest. The Joiner was covered in burns, cuts and bruises, his body marked with deliberate incisions and badly-healing wounds. He weighed next to nothing despite being nearly as tall as Vector himself and he reeked of body odour, infection and neglect. His aura was a tangled mishmash of fear, pain and hopelessness, and as he stared back up at Vector there wasn’t even the faintest hint of recognition in his eyes. Wherever his mind was, it wasn’t there in the cell with Vector.

“Meet my Master’s first Joiner test subject,” Ryshan said, slamming the button that reactivated the force-field again and trapping Vector in with his catatonic fellow Joiner. “She wanted to perfect her methods before she tried them out on you. I guess freaks of your persuasion are rarer than regular Joiner freaks?”

Vector didn’t answer, too horrified by the frail man in his arms to rise to Ryshan’s bait. As Ryshan had clumsily indicated, the man _was_ a Joiner – just a Joiner, not a Dawn Herald such as Vector was. And it was true: Dawn Heralds were rare and hard to come by; most never left the Nest. Vector was the only Dawn Herald of the Oroboro Nest, and as Killiks were few and far between in the galaxy he thought it unlikely that Darth Occlus would be able to locate another such as he. He would have thought it impossible for the Sith lord to get her hands on a Joiner, but the evidence of her success was in Vector’s hands. He had to wonder – and worry – whether there were others trapped on board the star destroyer or awaiting a similar gruesome fate on Dromund Kaas.

“Think of this as the astrogation chart of your future, freak,” Ryshan said, stepping away from the force-field. “My Master has a lab set up just for you on Dromund Kaas – and I can’t wait to watch her take you apart piece by piece.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is a line from the song "Bonedriven" by Bush.


	57. Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranza reacts to the bad news. Theron and Evraun try to hold on. Vector is running out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for description of injuries

_**Odessen, Seven Years After the Death of Emperor Valkorion** _

Standing in the open doorway of their bedroom on Odessen, Miranza was taken aback by how wrong it felt that nothing seemed out of place. Their bed was still unmade, the sheets and comforter thrown back after she’d gotten up that morning. There was a cold and unfinished mug of tea on the bedside table, left there from the night before. Theron’s datapads were strewn across the narrow caf table and discarded clothing scattered across the floor. There should have been some evidence, some proof that the world had changed, some sign that Miranza’s life had been turned upside-down sometime between awakening and this moment. Instead everything was as she had left it, as if to mock her with the fact that in a matter of hours the two most important people in her life were simply _gone._

She stepped inside their bedroom and closed the door behind her, locking it with a quiet click. The room was dark, the lights set to their lowest setting and the sideboard consoles throwing off soft blue illumination that made monstrous shadows out of heaps of clothing and random knickknacks. She moved around a pile of clothes – mostly Theron’s, she thought, dumped there when he’d been searching for something he wanted to pack for his trip to Rishi – and sat down on the edge of the bed. It was just a figment of her imagination but she thought she could feel warmth from where she and Vector had lain together just the night before.

Theron and the Wrath’s apprentice had missed their scheduled check-in. At first it had been easy to dismiss her concerns: they were both intelligent, highly-skilled and competent men, and it was entirely possible that they had simply been distracted by their investigation into the attack on the Wrath and her family. Then, sometime between Theron’s first missed check-in and his second, Vector also disappeared, and by the time Theron’s third check-in came and went with no response and no sign of Vector a sharp, screaming panic had settled in Miranza’s mind.

They were just … gone.

Security teams were scouring Odessen for any sign of Vector and Lana was already in contact with their allies on Rishi regarding Theron (and Lord Razaraje), and Miranza was under orders – from Lana, from the Commander, from all the doctors in the infirmary who’d been treating her during the Endorian pox – to stay put and await further intel. Normally she was very good at waiting. This time around she wanted to scream and claw her own eyes out.

The last person to have seen or spoken to Vector appeared to be a young Republic soldier Miranza didn’t know. That in and of itself was not suspicious; there were lots of people on Odessen she didn’t know, and as a general rule Republic citizens – at least those who knew of her and her reputation – tended to keep their distance. Security cams had caught the interaction between Vector and the soldier, and while there was an unfortunate lack of audio the young man had conveniently positioned himself so that he was in direct line of sight to the cam and Miranza’s skill at lip-reading was sufficient to know that he had name-dropped Lana. He’d gestured towards the dockyards and Vector, who’d clearly been headed towards the infirmary, had instead changed course for the landing pads. It was easy enough to surmise that the young soldier had told Vector to meet Lana at the dockyards or somewhere in the near vicinity. It was the last time either Vector or the soldier appeared on cam, and neither one had been heard from or seen since.

Meanwhile Lana had discovered – after informing Miranza that she most certainly had _not_ requested Vector’s presence out on the landing pads, and had in fact still been in meetings at the time indicated on the security feeds – that her contact on Rishi had received a distress beacon from Theron and Lord Razaraje’s shuttle, and that that was the last time anyone had heard from them. Lana was trying to garner more information from her Rishi asset while also coordinating the search effort for Vector and manage the day-to-day affairs on Odessen. The Sith lord was overworked and over-extended, but she rebuffed Miranza’s offers to assist her, saying only that Miranza was still recovering from her illness.

It was unfair. Lana wasn’t wrong, but it was still unfair.

The Endorian pox had kicked her ass. It had been embarrassing and aggravating to be taken out so easily by what by all rights should have been a simple childhood illness. Once again Miranza’s bizarre childhood – raised in a facility with other future Imperial spies, isolated and engineered – came to bite her in the ass, and as a result she hadn’t been exposed to the pox the way a normal, socially-connected child would have been. If she’d caught the illness as a child she would have spent a few restless days itching and being a general pest. Instead she’d been laid up in bed, and while there had certainly been itching – by the stars, she had never been more itchy in her life – there had also been exhaustion, muscle aches, headaches, and fever. She’d spent the first day in the infirmary and then been confined to the room she shared with Vector and Theron, under orders to rest and recover – and with Vector hovering over her to ensure she _obeyed_ those orders. Even now, with a clean bill of health and permission to return to the endless cycle of meetings and post-meeting-meetings, she tired easily and her head and joints still pained her. Miranza was realistic enough to know she was in no condition to oversee either the search for Theron and Lord Razaraje or the investigation into Vector’s disappearance, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel left out and angry about it.

She had gone back to their bedroom with the faint hope of catching a nap, thinking a bit of rest would enable her to at least _fake_ being healthy enough to participate in one search effort or the other. Instead her mind was racing and the only thing she wanted to do was grab the _Mercurial_ and fly straight for Rishi. But Vector was almost certainly not on Rishi and while Theron was there, she had no idea where to look for him. She was useless and helpless and distinctly unfamiliar with either sensation.

Theron’s disappearance was – most likely – coincidental. He and Lord Razaraje had gone to Rishi to investigate the attempt on the Wrath’s life, and in all likelihood whatever had happened to them was connected with that attack. They might have attracted the attention of the people responsible for the assault, or it was even theoretically possible that their shuttle had simply run into trouble independent of anything to do with the Wrath. Shuttle accidents happened all the time, and Rishi was home to pirates, smugglers, larger predatory animals and dangerous weather patterns. There was nothing to suggest that Theron’s disappearance was in any way connected to Vector’s; it was just a case of horrific timing.

Vector’s disappearance, on the other hand: that was the result of deliberate malice, and logic – or perhaps paranoia fueled by years of painful experience – told Miranza there was one obvious cause.

_Amrielle._

It had been some time since she had last heard from the Nautolan, but Miranza was not so foolishly naïve as to believe the woman had given up her vendetta against Miranza and her lovers. She’d wreaked havoc with her kidnapping and subsequent auction of Theron; it stood to reason that she had managed something similar with Vector. If someone wanted to hurt Miranza – and Amrielle certainly did – the obvious way to do it was through Theron and Vector. The fact that Amrielle also blamed the two of them as well as Miranza for her downfall just sweetened the deal.

If they could find the Republic soldier Miranza could question him and find out how Amrielle was involved. If they were really, _really_ lucky it might even be possible that the young man could lead them back to Amrielle, or at least point them in the right direction.

Once they found the soldier Miranza was confident she could get him to talk. She just had to make sure Commander Savarr and Master Zarasa weren’t anywhere around when she met with him. She had a nagging suspicion the Jedi weren’t going to appreciate her methods.

Lana, the Wrath and Major Quinn, on the other hand: _they_ would understand.

Miranza sat on the edge of the bed, hands twisting in the soft sheets, wishing she could curl up under the covers and pretend that when she crawled back out again her world would be set to rights. Instead she was alone and tired and aching in a room where every surface, every sight and every smell reminded her of Vector and Theron.

Her comm chirped. Instantly she had it out and on her knee, activating it to reveal Lana’s anxious face.

_“We’ve located the Republic soldier,”_ the Sith lord informed Miranza without preamble. Miranza’s hopes lifted and were immediately crushed with Lana’s next statement: _“He’s dead. His body was found stuffed in a storage crate off-site from the landing pads.”_

Miranza wrinkled her nose. It was summer on Odessen and the days were hot and humid. Assuming the young man had been killed around the same time that Vector had disappeared, his body would have had plenty of time to decompose. There was nothing that quite compared to the stench of a rotting corpse. The only wonder was that it had taken so long to find him – the storage container must have been well away from the landing pads and dockyards, or the warm summer breezes had carried the smell away from more populated areas.

“Is he still there?” Miranza asked, stuffing her disappointment down along with her rising panic and forcing herself to sound professional and composed. “I’d like to examine the scene.”

Lana shook her head, brushing pale blonde hair out of her face with an irritated gesture. _“The body’s been taken to the infirmary. Major Quinn has offered to perform the autopsy, but preliminary examination suggests he was strangled. As for the scene itself … well, it’s rained since Vector’s disappearance and there have been people in and out of the area. You’re welcome to investigate, of course, but I’m not certain that you’re likely to find anything. Still, it’s possible you will notice something the rest of us have missed.”_ Miranza knew the Sith lord was merely trying to humour her and didn’t care in the slightest.

Miranza let her breath out in a long, slow exhalation and waited three beats before inhaling again. It didn’t help. Lana gave her a knowing look through the holocomm.

_“How are you holding up, Agent?”_ The normalcy of the old nickname felt strange and out of place, given how everything else in Miranza’s life seemed to have been turned on its head.

“I’m fine,” Miranza lied immediately. “Give me a few minutes to … to finish what I’m doing and I’ll come take a look.” She hesitated before asking, “Any word from Rishi?”

Another head-shake, Lana making no effort to disguise how concerned she was. It was times like these that Miranza was reminded that Theron was Lana’s friend, too, and that the Sith lord cared for him – and for Vector. In fact, Lana had known Theron before Miranza had, before Miranza had been brought into the investigation into Darth Arkous and Colonel Darok. While it might have been stretching things a bit to say that Theron and Lana had been friends back then – uncomfortable allies of convenience might have been a more accurate description – they were most certainly friends now. Lana might not have the romantic or intimate relationship that Miranza shared with Vector and Theron, but she was good friends with both men, and their absence – and its effect on Miranza – was a matter of great importance to her.

_“You will be the first person I contact the moment I hear anything,”_ Lana said, voice surprisingly gentle. She coughed, one gloved hand over her mouth as she cleared her throat, then added, _“I’ll hold the scene until you’re here. Take your time. Did you want to observe the autopsy as well, or shall I tell Major Quinn to proceed?”_

Miranza considered the question, then shook her own head. She’d taken courses on forensics, but in all likelihood the Major was better qualified than she was to conduct the autopsy and she doubted she would see anything his heavily-trained eyes would miss. Besides, she wasn’t entirely certain she could prevent herself from trying to shake or beat answers out of the dead soldier, and she didn’t want the Wrath’s husband to witness her indulging in that kind of senseless behaviour.

She and Lana signed off, and with a sigh Miranza stood, tucking her comm in the back pocket of her trousers. The darkened bedroom felt too small and too cluttered and too kriffing _empty_ as the reality of Lana’s update truly sunk in.

Dead. The only person who might have any information on Vector’s disappearance was dead, and far beyond any efforts Miranza might have made to interrogate him. It was possible that his corpse or the site where his body had been found might yield some insight into the circumstances surrounding his death, but unless he had a datapad or comm on him – perhaps conveniently loaded with directions to Amrielle’s evil lair or a flow-chart outlining the Nautolan woman’s detailed plans to kidnap Vector – there was no way to know where Amrielle had him or what she intended to do with him.

The last time the Nautolan had kidnapped someone Miranza loved, she’d sacrificed her soul and her sanity to get him back – and Theron had come back broken almost beyond repair. This time around she was going to find Amrielle, and when she did, she was going to carve that Nautolan bitch’s chest open and eat her heart right before her cold, black eyes.

Before she had time for the thought to fully percolate through her mind Miranza bent down and picked up the half-empty mug on the bedside table and _whipped_ it across the room with all her strength. The mug shattered, cold tea and shards of pottery spraying out over the wall and floor. Unsatisfied with that one small act of violence she grabbed something else – one of Theron’s boots, laces untied and dangling – and hurled it at the mirror over her dresser, scattering toiletries, assorted jewelry and bits of broken glass across the dresser and onto the rug. With a small, frustrated scream she moved through the bedroom, picking up and hurling various items – at the wall, at the broken mirror, at other pieces of furniture – before catching sight of her own reflection in the jagged shards above her dresser. Her face was too pale, her eyes wide and wild, and after a few seconds she slammed her fist into the remaining glass, intent upon destroying her own image.

When she brought her hand away her fist was bloody – _both_ her fists were bloody, although she had no memory of injuring the other hand.

Miranza let out another cry of frustration, snatched the mirror frame from off the wall, and hurled it in the direction of the bed. Then, bloodied hands covering her face, she felt her knees buckle as she sank to the floor in the centre of their lonely bedroom.

O o O o O

_  
**Rishi**  
_

_He was drowning, salt water spilling down his throat and into his lungs. He clawed desperately for the surface but he was under, too deep, and his boots and armour weighed him down. His head was throbbing but it was impossible to tell if the pain was the result of an injury, the lack of oxygen to his brain, or the weight of the water crushing over him. There were other points of pain – hip, arm, chest; everywhere, it seemed – but it was the fact that he couldn’t breathe, that he was drowning that filled him with terror._

_He tried to paddle himself upwards but his arm wouldn’t cooperate; he couldn’t feel his fingers and there was a fiery pain from shoulder to elbow. His entire body felt made of duracrete, one solid lump of dense mass dragging him down, away from the sunlight and warmth and precious, precious air._

_Maybe, if he could manage to free himself from the extra weight of his jacket, discard his heavy gear … Maybe he could swim for the surface. Maybe he could breathe again …_

_He thrashed, trying to tug his good hand through the sleeve of his jacket, but the thick leatheris clung to him, twining around his wrist, and –_

Theron came up fighting and gasping for breath.

Evraun leaned over him, fingers curled around Theron’s good wrist, his handsome features twisted up in concern. When he saw recognition fill Theron’s eyes he relaxed and released him, sitting back on his haunches but still close enough to reach Theron the instant he needed him.

“Nightmare?” the Sith asked, somehow managing to infuse both compassion and idle interest into that one word.

Theron nodded and immediately regretted the motion. His headache had grown worse, he discovered, and now encompassed his entire skull instead of just the left side of his head where he’d apparently struck something – probably the left-hand console – when the shuttle had crashed. Theron’s memories of the crash itself remained so vague as to be essentially nonexistent, but Evraun had filled him in on the broad-strokes of what had happened: they’d come to Rishi to investigate an attack against the Wrath and her family, and during the course of that investigation they themselves had come under fire and been forced to make a quick getaway, during which their shuttle had crashed. Evraun had somehow managed to swim them both to shore but their shuttle and most of their gear and supplies were now at the bottom of a Rishi ocean.

Theron didn’t need Evraun to come out and say it to know that the Wrath’s apprentice had saved his life. He’d been knocked unconscious at some point during the crash; had Evraun not been there, he likely would never have escaped the shuttle. It was no wonder he dreamt of drowning.

Evraun continued to be the hero. He’d set up camp for them both a little ways away from the shore: close enough that he could keep an eye on the shoreline for rescue or trouble, but far enough away that they weren’t too exposed. Although Evraun joked that his wilderness survival skills were subpar – strangely enough, surviving on a deserted island hadn’t featured in his Korriban education – he’d managed to build and tend a small campfire as well as patch them both up with supplies that had washed ashore. The benefit of the emergency kits that were typically kept stashed away on shuttles was that the containers themselves were designed to float; as a result Evraun and Theron had a small supply of ration bars (enough to last them a few weeks if they were careful to pace themselves), some flasks and water-decontamination pills, and a tiny first aid kit that was better than nothing. Evraun had splinted Theron’s badly broken arm and applied kolto and bandages to the worst of their injuries. Between his concussion – severe enough that even the slightest amount of movement made him immediately dizzy and nauseated – his broken arm and the painful blaster burn along his hip, Theron found himself largely useless, and he was more or less forced to stay still while the Sith lord did all the work.

It was difficult for Theron to gauge how much time had passed. While he couldn’t remember the specifics of their investigation on Rishi, he’d participated in enough operations for the Alliance to know that he and Evraun should have checked in with the Odessen base on a regular basis, and by now the two of them had to have missed dozens of scheduled check-ins. He could see Vector and Miranza letting the first missed check-in slide, and perhaps even the second – it was impossible to predict the complications that would come up during an away mission and sometimes deadlines were missed – but there was no way his partners wouldn’t find his continued comm silence concerning. Evraun confirmed that there were many people within the Alliance who knew where he and Theron were and what they were supposed to have been doing, so chances were good that Vector and Miranza were en route to Rishi even now.

Help was on the way, Theron was certain of it. He and Evraun just had to hold on until their rescue arrived.

“How’s the head?” Evraun asked, plunking down on his ass in the sand. He picked up an errant bit of driftwood and began poking at the campfire, sending a spray of sparks and puffs of smoke up into the sky. Night had fallen, and the lack of pollution and overpopulation on Rishi meant that Theron had a perfect view of a star-filled sky through the palm fronds overhead. The temperature had dropped significantly and the night air was cool, cool enough that Evraun had dug out the crinkly thermal blankets from the emergency kit and draped both of them over Theron’s supine form. Theron had protested – surely the Sith lord was feeling the cold as well? – but Evraun had simply pointed out that _he_ was capable of moving around if he got cold, whereas Theron could barely sit up without feeling like the world was spinning off its axis.

“Oh, wonderful,” Theron replied, heavy on the sarcasm. He licked his lips, noticing how dry and chapped they’d become in such a relatively short period of time, then added with more honesty, “The pounding in my head has synched up with the throbbing in my leg, so that’s … well, at least it’s coordinated.”

Evraun frowned. The light of the campfire did interesting things to the planes of his face: the high cheekbones, the broad forehead, the smooth lush lips. The firelight made his eyes seem more red than brown, sable giving way to shades of mahogany and russet. The thought took Theron by surprise; he wasn’t one for poetry – that was more Vector’s style, really. If he hadn’t already suspected he was growing feverish, the sudden shift to purple prose cinched it for him.

“Do you mind if I look at your leg again, Theron?” The Sith lord shifted between calling Theron by his name and using cutesy nicknames – mostly sticking with ‘Starshine,’ which Theron was honestly starting to love. But Evraun always used his given name when he wanted Theron’s complete and undivided attention.

If Evraun hadn’t already admitted to being just about the worst Sith in the galaxy – and he had, repeatedly – his treatment of Theron would have been a dead giveaway. The Sith was exceedingly cautious and mindful of Theron’s agency, checking in before he even so much as felt his forehead for his temperature. A part of Theron wondered if perhaps Miranza or Vector might have filled Evraun in a bit on his past, save for the fact that he knew there was no way his partners would have discussed any of his past trauma with Evraun without consulting with him first. Instead it seemed that Evraun was just naturally considerate, and the only time he’d laid hands on Theron without getting explicit permission first had been when Theron had been unconscious and therefore unable to give his consent – and when it had been necessary to do so in order to keep Theron alive and safe. The first few times Theron had been conscious when Evraun touched him he’d been a little hesitant, natural caution around a Sith lord combining with previous negative experiences to leave him feeling more than a little uneasy. But Evraun was always gentle and careful, all his joking and casual flirting set aside while he did what was medically necessary. Despite his claims of being terrible at Force-healing and first aid Evraun proved to have a deft hand, and although Theron knew his injuries were growing worse he also understood that it was through no fault of the other man’s.

Evraun waited until Theron gave his consent before getting up and squatting down next to him again. Theron’s trousers were ripped along the seam of his right thigh, providing the Sith with ready access to the blaster burn over his hip. He’d covered the burn in kolto gel and wrapped it in a bandage, but even in the dim light of the campfire Theron could see that the bandages had grown dark with blood and – he suspected – pus. Evraun’s touch was gentle and feather-light, but when he pulled the bandage free to inspect the wound Theron couldn’t help but let out a small hiss of pain as the throbbing in his leg intensified.

“Well,” Theron said, as he caught sight of the exposed injury, “That doesn’t look good.”

“No,” Evraun replied tightly, “It doesn’t.”

The burn itself was a vicious red line seared across Theron’s hip. He had no memory of being wounded, no more than he remembered the shuttle crash or Evraun dragging him to shore. At first glance, however, he could see how he might have initially believed the injury to be too minor to require immediate attention – or perhaps, in their desperate flight to escape, he simply hadn’t had the time to tend to the wound. Since then, however, Theron could see a pattern of inflammation spreading outward from the burn, and the skin, when Evraun brushed it with the tip of his finger, was swollen and sensitive. And sure enough, to Theron’s immense disgust a small amount of pus leaked up from the centre of the wound, along with watery-looking blood.

Evraun dragged the first aid kit over beside him and rummaged around, producing the scrunched-up tube of kolto gel and a packet of pills. He tore open the packet and handed the contents to Theron: two small white capsules that he swallowed immediately along with a few quick gulps of lukewarm water from his canteen. The decontamination tablets Evraun had used to purify their water for drinking gave it a flat chemical taste, but Theron was thirsty enough that it didn’t matter in the slightest. As soon as he had the pills down his stomach protested, and he had to clap his good hand over his mouth to keep himself from bringing the antibiotics back up. They didn’t have enough for him to waste them.

“You okay?” Evraun asked. When Theron nodded the Sith held up the kolto gel and gestured towards his leg, saying, “Is it okay if I …?” At Theron’s murmured agreement Evraun squirted a small amount of their rapidly-dwindling gel onto his fingertips – which he’d already washed off with clean water first – and carefully applied it to the burn. Evraun’s hand felt amazingly cool against the searing heat in Theron’s hip, and although the contact was painful there was an immediate numbing sensation as the gel set to work.

Evraun worked in silence, his dark eyes focused on the injury and the spreading infection. Theron concentrated on keeping his leg still and his mouth shut, not wanting to jostle Evraun or alarm the other man by letting him know how much even that gentle touch hurt. He suspected his breathing gave him away, however; he couldn’t prevent the way his breaths sped up or the punched-out hisses he made whenever Evraun’s fingertips got too close to the worst of the burn. The numbing effect of the gel helped, but Theron knew it would be short-lived: this wasn’t the first time Evraun had applied the kolto gel to the wound, and it was clear his injury wasn’t getting any better – that it was, in fact, getting worse.

“There,” Evraun said, twisting the cap back onto the tube and setting it back in the kit. He made a great show of wiping his hands off on his salt-stained trousers. “All better.”

“Yeah,” Theron agreed, hating how weak his voice sounded and the way it made Evraun look at him, all anxious and alarmed. “Much better. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Evraun’s voice was tight, the expression on his face carefully controlled. He gave Theron a bright smile; Theron was the better liar and he could see right through it, but he felt it politic to keep his observations to himself.

After a few seconds of staring at each other Evraun cleared his throat and helped Theron to reposition his leg so that it was slightly elevated. He didn’t rebandage the injury, nor did he make any effort to cover the wound with the torn edges of Theron’s trousers. Instead he tugged on the worn fabric, tearing it open to expose more of the burn to the cool night air; the gentle breeze, combined with the gel, felt delightfully refreshing against Theron’s over-heated skin.

“Want something to eat?” the Sith lord asked, standing and turning away so that Theron couldn’t see the fear and worry in his eyes.

“Sure,” Theron replied, although the thought of food – especially ration bars, which were generally unpalatable at the best of times – left him feeling vaguely nauseated and he doubted he’d be able to force down more than a few bites. He knew he needed to eat, that his body needed the energy to fight off the infection. Evraun tossed him a couple of ration bars; Theron caught the first in his good hand but fumbled the second, letting it bounce off his chest and onto the sand.

“Okay.” Evraun drew in a deep breath, broad shoulders heaving, and waved one hand in the direction of the beach. He’d taken to patrolling every few hours or so in the hopes of spotting a ship or speeder out on the water. There was always the risk that anyone coming near their island might not be friendly, but if someone was looking for them – and soon Theron knew Miranza and Vector would be arriving on Rishi to rescue them – they’d need to keep an eye out to make sure they weren’t overlooked. Patrolling for threats and potential allies was yet another way in which Evraun was doing the bulk of the work: Theron couldn’t even stand, much less walk around the island.

“I’m gonna …” Evraun waved again and let the sentence trail off in another sigh. He gave Theron a long look over one shoulder before adding, “I won’t be gone long. You just … rest up and get better, all right?”

“Sure thing,” Theron said, forcing his lips upward in what was probably a ghastly parody of a smile. “Shout if you need me.” They’d made his convalescence into something of a joke: Evraun could scream and shout all he wanted, but chances were good that whether he needed Theron or not, Theron wasn’t going to be able to come running.

Evraun didn’t return the smile. Instead he simply turned and trudged off toward the beach. When he reached what he likely thought was the edge of Theron’s vision his gait shifted, and Theron noticed with a growing sense of panic that the other man was limping. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Evraun was hiding injuries from him – between being naturally reluctant to reveal vulnerabilities and wanting to reassure Theron that everything was fine, of _course_ Evraun would be pretending to be in perfectly good health – but it did. If Evraun was hurt – worse, if Evraun was hurt badly enough that he felt the need to hide it – their situation was even more precarious, especially if someone showed up on the island who wasn’t there to save their asses.

Theron watched Evraun shuffle toward the beach, and turned the ration bar over and over again in his hand, staring at it without actually seeing it. He looked down at the redness and swelling spreading over his leg, felt the steady throbbing in his head, and set the bar down on the ground beside the one he’d dropped. He wasn’t hungry. He’d eat it later, after the antibiotics and kolto had kicked in and he was feeling better.

Evraun stepped behind a stand of palm trees and disappeared from view. In the distance the waves lapped up against the sandy shore and the stars and moon shone overhead. Theron struggled into a half-sitting position and ignored the way his head pounded. Alone with only his unfriendly thoughts for company, he remembered what it felt like to drown.

O o O o O

_  
**Unknown Space**  
_

The Joiner died sometime during the night.

Vector did what he could to make the man comfortable within the cramped confines of their cell, but his injuries were too severe and Vector’s supplies were limited to what he had on him, which was nothing more than his shirt and trousers and the flask of water one of the Imperial soldiers had given him. It wasn’t enough. The Joiner – pale-faced, gaunt, his eyes staring unseeing up at the ceiling of the brig – was covered in cuts and bruises, burns and incision marks. Vector didn’t think the man had been tortured in the traditional sense; rather, it seemed to him that the other Joiner had been put through medical experimentation. Someone – probably Darth Occlus – had opened him up, had poked and prodded and taken him apart in order to see what he was made of.

In the end it was simply too much. Vector cradled the dying Joiner in his arms and tried very hard not to see the other man’s death as his own eventual fate. He hummed and brushed lank hair out of the man’s empty eyes and when the Joiner breathed his last breath Vector gently pushed his eyelids closed and set him down on the ground. He adjusted the man’s limbs so that he appeared to be resting comfortably – not that it mattered much anymore – and lifted the hem of the Joiner’s ragged, blood-stained shirt to cover the dead man’s face.

Vector then stood and went to sit on the bench, as far away from the body as he could get. He didn’t want to be disrespectful, but it was clear the Joiner hadn’t been provided with any opportunities for proper hygiene during his captivity, and the sad, desiccated corpse had already reeked of body odour and blood long before the poor man’s death and would only grow more unpleasant with time.

Vector drew his feet up onto the bench and hugged his knees against his chest. Around him he could feel the steady, subtle vibrations of a ship in flight, and knew they were en route to Dromund Kaas. He remembered Miranza mentioning that Darth Occlus had an estate on the Imperial capital planet, located far outside the boundaries of Kaas City. He’d initially been foolish enough to believe the Sith lord kept her estate in such a remote location because she’d wanted to remove herself from the politicking prevalent in the Sith Empire. Now he suspected the isolation was meant to ensure there was little reason for officials to go snooping around into her experiments. No sane person would venture into the heart of the jungles of Dromund Kaas to investigate a former Dark Council-member’s private estate – no matter how much screaming they heard.

He could not allow himself to be taken to Darth Occlus’s estate.

In university he had learned, as part of the standard course of education for future diplomats and ambassadors, that in the event of an attempted kidnapping it was best to ensure your kidnappers were unable to remove you to a secondary location. Generally the assumption had been that diplomatic emissaries might be held hostage as the result of negotiations falling through and that in most cases such proceedings would end with a minimal amount of bloodshed. Some criminal elements would simply see ambassadors and other official appointees as being valuable targets; while the Empire was not in the habit of negotiating with terrorists, there were times when it was considered acceptable to pay out significant amounts of credits in order to ensure the safe return of their emissaries. In other cases, however, terrorists or revolutionaries might kidnap political officials in order to make a statement, and in such instances … well, things did not tend to end particularly well. As such, Vector’s training suggested that whenever possible he should do whatever he could to ensure his captors were not given the chance to take him to some remote secondary location, because once they had him alone and isolated it was unlikely he would leave with his life. Alone and isolated he could be tortured and killed, his body sent back to the Empire as a message – or propped up somewhere where everyone could see what had been done to him.

He didn’t think Darth Occlus intended to make any particular message through him, but he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to enjoy anything she planned on doing to him at her estate. He was equally certain Theron and Miranza were going to be looking for him – and that unless they were already well on their way from Odessen (which was unlikely, since they wouldn’t have any idea where to find him; Darth Occlus didn’t seem the sort to send a calling card), they would be arriving far too late to save him.

He was quite determined that his lovers not find him in the same state as the Joiner who’d been thrown into his cell. Whatever it took, Theron and Miranza were not going to be storming Dromund Kaas only to recover his sad, broken remains.

Still, there was little enough he could do while the star destroyer was in space, so Vector sat on the bench and conserved his energy. Time passed without any further visits from Ryshan – but there were also no visits from the vessel’s staff, and no one brought Vector food or water, nor was the dead Joiner removed from his cell. Vector was tired and hungry, and when it became apparent this was to be the course of things he stretched out on his back on the bench, closed his eyes, and did his best to fall asleep. Failing that, he meditated. Had the other Joiner still been alive it might have been possible to connect with him, Killik to Killik, but as it was Vector was grateful to be spared the man’s pain, even as he derided himself for his selfishness. Connected, he might have been able to offer the other man some comfort prior to his death – but Vector would have shared every last, agonizing second, and it would have accomplished nothing. Nothing save to give a dying man peace.

Unable to see the stars or read a chrono, and with no one coming to the brig, there was no way for Vector to know how much time passed. He also had no idea how long he had been aboard Ryshan’s ship prior to being transferred over to the star destroyer. All he knew was that eventually there were sounds outside his cell. At first he thought perhaps Ryshan was coming to gloat – or worse – or that maybe, just maybe someone was coming to bring him food and water, but instead he was met by a contingent of armed soldiers. As before they were all clad in dark Imperial livery and all of them had the same tainted auras that suggested some measure of tinkering from Darth Occlus. He was ordered to stand, then two of the guards came forward, one carrying a set of restraints similar to the ones he had worn aboard Ryshan’s ship, the other brandishing a stun-baton. When the force-field was lowered the directions were clear: he would submit to being restrained or the other guard would shock him into compliance.

For a very long moment Vector weighed his options. He was alone and surrounded by enemies aboard a star destroyer in space. He could fight, but he would be stunned – likely into unconsciousness – and restrained whether he willed it or not, at which point whatever happened next would be beyond his control. Or he could fight and force the soldiers to kill him, in which case they would be punished by Darth Occlus and he would be far beyond her reach.

Neither of those options appealed to him. Vector stood and held his hands out, wrists together, and waited for the guard to cuff him.

He was made to put his arms behind his back – his shoulders, still not recovered from the time he’d spent restrained aboard Ryshan’s ship, protested the movement with fiery dull aches – and when he did he felt the cuffs locking into place. As he had suspected they were the same cuffs he’d worn before – or similar enough as to make no difference – and while the thick durasteel bands were far too sturdy for even his enhanced strength to break, he thought he might be able to slip loose with a little time, effort and bloodshed. Given the choice between spending the rest of his likely-to-be-short life in Darth Occlus’s laboratories or scraping his hands bloody, he preferred the latter.

The soldiers crowded around him, leading him out of his cell and back into the long corridor that he recognized from his earlier trip.

“Whatever happened to our host?” he mused out loud, noting Ryshan’s conspicuous absence. It was probably too much to hope that the man had spontaneously burst into flames or developed some sort of rapid-onset necrotizing disease.

He saw the soldiers ahead of him exchanging glances before one said, “He’s being punished for his failures.”

_Failures?_ Vector wondered, then realized the soldier was likely referring to Ryshan’s failure to kidnap Theron and Miranza in addition to himself. He’d seen enough of Miranza’s behaviour upon her return to Odessen to know that he didn’t wish to speculate on what sorts of punishment Darth Occlus might put Ryshan through. He didn’t want to know. As much as he wanted the other man to suffer, he didn’t particularly desire to bear witness to it or to know the details.

Miranza would have wanted Ryshan’s punishment caught on holovid so that she could watch it again and again. His beloved was occasionally an exceptionally bloodthirsty woman, particularly when it came to his and Theron’s well-being and threats against them.

Stars, he missed them both. Theron would be back from Rishi by now, along with the Wrath’s apprentice, and no doubt he and Miranza would be driving Lana and Master Savarr mad with worry over him. There was no chance his absence had been missed. He didn’t know precisely how long he’d been gone, but when he didn’t return to their bedroom the night he’d been taken Miranza would have immediately known something was up. She’d still been in recovery, he wouldn’t have left her on her own if he’d had any say in the matter.

As he walked Vector took greater notice of his surroundings, but it merely served to confirm what he already knew: he was on board a star destroyer, a vessel in far better repair and with much better organization than the one he had raided in order to rescue Theron from Darth Jadzira. Even if he had wanted to he couldn’t have made a run for it – and he did not want to, because there was simply nowhere to go. The soldiers who marched with him moved with military precision, in step with one another in a way that spoke of years of training and experience, and they gave him no opportunities to dawdle or go his own direction. Nor did they push or prod at him the way Ryshan had done when he’d first arrived on board the ship; if they took any pleasure at all from his predicament, or if they were at all uncomfortable to be in the presence of a Joiner, they gave no indication.

The soldiers took Vector out to the landing bay of the star destroyer, where he saw both the ship Ryshan had brought him in on and another, smaller shuttle used for transporting from dreadnought to orbital stations or planets. It was the smaller shuttle where he was headed, the soldiers veering off course almost as soon as they entered the bay. The shuttle was already undergoing pre-flight shakedown procedures, and there was still no sign of Ryshan. With any luck the pilot’s punishment would ensure Vector would not be trapped with him in the close confines of the shuttle for the trip to Dromund Kaas.

A port was opened along the length of the shuttle and a small ramp was set down to enable Vector and four of the soldiers to board the small vessel. ‘Small’ was one word to describe the shuttlecraft; _‘cramped’_ might have been more accurate. The shuttle was a light transport, with a cockpit separate from the rest of the ship and only enough room for four people to sit comfortably. Two of the soldiers took the rear-facing bench while Vector was made to cram himself in between the other two on the front-facing bench. He sat, hands bound behind his back, while the shuttle doors were closed and the rest of the pre-flight procedures continued. None of the soldiers spoke to him, but as the ship started up it became evident that speech would be an issue, as the vessel was incredibly noisy and they would have had to shout in order to be heard.

This suited Vector just fine. He wasn’t inclined towards polite chit-chat with his captors.

There was a small window at the rear of the shuttle, built into the cargo port door. Through it Vector saw the star destroyer as the shuttle moved out of range, and then a seemingly endless field of stars. In relatively short order his ears began to pop as the shuttle changed altitude, heading downwards to the planet’s surface and what he suspected would be the spaceport outside of Kaas City. Soon enough the sky began to lighten and then he could make out the tops of trees in the distance; he couldn’t be certain, but he thought he recognized the jungles of Dromund Kaas.

As the shuttle continued its trajectory, Vector used the noise and jostling to cover his efforts to free himself from the restraints. As he’d suspected the bands were too thick and too well-made for him to simply snap the manacles or the chain that connected them; he was stronger than the average human, but it seemed his captors had accounted for that fact. With a bit of wriggling, however, he was able to set the cuffs against the wall of the shuttle and use that small amount of leverage to scrape the band against his wrists and hands. It was painful, the sharp rings of metal digging into his skin, but within a relatively short period of time he had done enough damage to himself that the blood was flowing freely over the backs of his hands. Fortunately – Vector was capable of dislocating his thumbs to squeeze his hands through the cuffs, but he wasn’t confident in his abilities to repair that damage afterwards – the blood provided sufficient lubrication, and he was relatively certain that with a bit more effort he could slip free of the restraints. His hands were a mess, but he could ignore the pain if it meant getting away.

“Where are you taking us?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din of the shuttle, and his question earned him a few angry glares from his guards.

The soldiers exchanged glances, and Vector could detect a ripple of disquiet through their auras. He suspected they were under orders not to talk to him, although he had no way of knowing whether those orders had come from Ryshan Esselby or Darth Occlus. Intuition suggested it was the latter; he didn’t think any of these men would willingly answer to a disgraced Republic privateer, no matter what enhancements their true master might have given him. The men seemed almost dismissive of Ryshan, and Vector wondered just where the smuggler stood in Darth Occlus’s hierarchy. Miranza had indicated that she had been something of an outsider herself when she had worked for the Sith lord, and that Occlus’s lackeys had generally had as little to do with her as possible.

“Have we arrived on Dromund Kaas?” Vector tried again. Ryshan had said that’s where he was headed, and it made sense if they had arrived on the planet that they would now be transporting him from the star destroyer to the planet’s surface via shuttle. Wherever Darth Occlus was holed up, chances were good she wouldn’t have a landing pad large enough to accommodate a ship the size of a star destroyer.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” one of the soldiers sitting across from him said. Like Vector he had to shout in order to be heard, but he sounded annoyed enough that he might have raised his voice regardless of the noise in the shuttle.

“But we are on Dromund Kaas, yes?” Vector persisted. He watched their faces and their auras, and through the miasmic taint he saw confirmation to his answer. The aura wasn’t an automatic lie detector, but in the years since he had been Joined he had become quite adept at reading and understanding what he saw there. It was a bit harder with these men, as the corruption from Darth Occlus’s tinkering interfered with his normal perception – the colours were just slightly off, and there was a wrongness in the way his guards responded to him, something hard and predatory that flowed through them – and in all likelihood had this happened to him years ago he wouldn’t have much success, but he knew he was correct. They were on Dromund Kaas, they were taking him to Darth Occlus’s estate, and these men – these men who didn’t even know him, but who feared him nonetheless simply because he was different from them – were delighted by what would be his eventual fate.

Vector had feared that Darth Occlus might try to do to him what she had done to Miranza and Ryshan and, to a lesser extent, these Imperial soldiers. Now, if the malicious glee he saw in his guards’ auras was any indication, he suspected his future was much more bleak.

He thought of the dead Joiner, and the injuries the man had. He’d long held a fear of being taken as a science experiment, of being carved open and taken apart. That Joiner had met that exact fate. That other Joiner had lived Vector’s worst nightmare – and Ryshan had promised him it was an indication of his own future.

“We simply wish to know where we are being taken,” he said, locking eyes with the man across from him, the one who had spoken before.

“Shut _up,”_ the soldier snapped, and he drew back the hand holding his blaster rifle, telegraphing his clear intent to strike Vector with the rifle’s butt.

Vector yanked his hands free of the restraints, ignoring the sudden flash of pain that came from squeezing his hands through the hard metal cuffs. His fingers were slick and sticky with blood. He moved to one side, appearing to duck the blow that was aimed at his head, and instead swept in under the soldier’s guard, striking the man in the face with the crown of his head. The sound of the man’s nose breaking was loud enough to be heard over the roar of the shuttle, as was his answering cry of pain, and for a brief moment all four guards were shocked into inaction.

That moment was all Vector needed.

His bloodied fist hammered into the jaw of the soldier beside the man he’d headbutted. The blow sent sharp shocks of pain up and down his arm but he was still moving, twisting to grab at the collars of the two soldiers behind him. With a quick savage tug he slammed their skulls together, putting all his strength into the action. If their condition was anything at all like Miranza’s then they would be stronger and tougher than normal human men, and Vector was in no position to be gentle or humane.

He cracked their heads together a second time. One man went limp; the other tried to bring his stun-baton to bear, but the multiple blows to the head had left him uncoordinated and rapidly losing his grip on consciousness. Vector yanked him forward, spinning and throwing the man into the soldier across from him, the one he’d punched. The stun-baton fell to the ground but Vector ignored it in favour of his own superior strength and speed.

Two men down, a third trapped under the weight of the man Vector had thrown.

Vector lashed out, striking the man he’d headbutted in the face with the heel of his palm. Bone crunched and popped under his blow and the man dropped to the floor of the shuttle like a marionette with its strings cut, his face a bloodied ruin and his eyes staring sightlessly.

He caught sight of his remaining captor, the soldier struggling to free himself from the dead weight of his fellow. In an act that would have disgusted and horrified him back when he’d first met up with Miranza on Alderaan, Vector slammed the heel of his boot down on the man’s neck with the full force of his combined weight and strength. He felt more than heard the resulting crunch as the soldier’s neck snapped beneath the blow, and the man’s struggles ceased entirely.

Vector didn’t give himself time to consider his actions. He quickly and neatly dispatched the two unconscious soldiers, leaving their bodies beside their equally dead fellows. He could regret the violence and loss of life later, when he was well away from this place and the horrific fate it promised him.

He waited a moment, senses attuned to the front of the shuttle for any indication that the remaining soldiers had seen or heard the altercation. Either there was no video feed from the passenger compartment to the cockpit, or the other soldiers were too busy piloting the ship to have noticed the deaths of their companions. When there was no immediate outcry from the cockpit Vector knelt and hurriedly stripped armour and weapons from the dead soldiers, donning a heavy leatheris jacket – blood scarcely visible over the dark fabric – over his own thin shirt.

He permitted himself time for a brief but heartfelt prayer, then slammed his hand down on the cargo door. An alarm sounded, yellow lights flashing as the door was opened in midflight. Air rushed through the passenger compartment, ruffling his hair; the cargo door fell open, revealing a blurry green canopy below. One of the bodies tumbled loose, plummeting out of the shuttle like a rock.

Vector counted to three, prayers still falling from his lips, and jumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Breakdown" is by Jack Johnson. It's a far more cheerful-sounding song than this chapter would imply, however, but I thought it fitting.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/salaciouscrumpet


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